Risk and Hazard Management for Festivals and Events

Peter Wynn-Moylan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138678392
• eBook ISBN: 9781317193296
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Events of all types are produced every day for all manner of purposes, attracting all sorts of people. To provide a safe and secure setting in which people gather is imperative. Event risk and hazard management must be fully integrated into all event plans and throughout the event management process.

Hazard management is the planning process required for the effective management of potential adverse incidents and areas of uncertainty. It involves intensive, detailed planning and cooperation to apply control systems to minimise hazards associated with venues, outdoor sites, work procedures, facilities, equipment and crowds of spectators. It involves planning for emergencies and security, and compliance with legal constraints and requirements.

Risk and Hazard Management for Festivals and Events provides students with a comprehensive, fully integrated planning and management mechanism that can be applied to events of all types and size. The Event Safety Management System provides guidelines and processes for proactive methods to identify, assess and control hazardous conditions and practices. The system incorporates design of festival venues and sites, and unites the operational functions of crowd control, communications, security, terrorism prevention processes and emergency response protocols.

Explanation of the causes of crowd disasters and studies into crowd behaviour are supported with international case studies. Written in an accessible, practical way, this book is essential reading for all events students and event managers.

Chapter 1
Event hazard and risk management

Regulations and legislation

Chapter objectives

This chapter explores:

• Who is responsible for event safety
• Laws enforcing event safety
• Extent of responsibility

An event manager has a responsibility to develop the event organisation’s policy and procedures for the safe conduct of its activities to make sure that the event site or venue is free from hazards that could cause injury or illness to their employees or to event attendees. Occupational Health and Safety laws in most countries require employers to use a risk management approach to ensure that their workplaces are safe for everyone who enters them. For an event, the event workplace is defined as the site or the venue in which it is held. Everyone includes the attendees at the event, all service contractors and all staff.

In all aspects of public life there is a heightened tendency towards litigation and many and various insurances are now required for events. While larger events with more creditability and financial backing may be able to obtain insurance with relative ease, smaller community events can sometimes face daunting costs of securing adequate liability cover. The danger for the event manager is that if an incident occurs they may be personally liable.

Criminal prosecution and heavy penalties under health and safety laws for companies and individuals who manage or are responsible for events are a real possibility in the wake of a terrorist incident, particularly if it emerges that core standards and statutory duties have not been met. Particularly relevant to protective security at events are the specific requirements of the UK Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and Regulations.

The need to focus on proper preparation and prevention to guard against criminal prosecution for safety and security lapses has sharpened in the UK with the introduction of the Corporate Manslaughter Act 2008 and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 and the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008.

Duty of care

Hazard and risk management planning is increasingly being demanded by event stakeholders such as the government and their agencies, insurance companies, sponsors, law and the courts. Failure to do so is considered a breach of ‘duty of care’.

Duty of care is a legal principle that regards the event organiser as a responsible person who must take all reasonable care to avoid acts of omissions that could injure another. It means taking actions that will prevent any foreseeable hazard of injury to the people who are directly involved, or affected by the event: staff, volunteers, performers, audience, host community etc.

It covers not only employees, but also extends to third parties at the workplace, such as drivers making deliveries, food sellers, merchandise stall holders, performers, participants, contestants and all subcontractors. And, perhaps most of all, the audience at the event.

In general, event organisers as employers must ensure the health, safety and welfare of their employees when at the event workplace by:

• maintaining places of work under their control in a safe condition and ensuring safe entrances and exits
• making arrangements for ensuring the safe use, handling, storage and transport of equipment and materials
• providing and maintaining systems of work and working environments that are safe and without risks to health
• providing the information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure the health and safety of employees.

Duty of care has been given a wide interpretation by the courts. In most legislation, duties, for example, are ‘unqualified’, that is, they are absolute. The event manager, as a representative of the event organising body, must absolutely guarantee a safe and healthy workplace. While the legal system clearly takes extenuating circumstances into account in particular cases, the onus of proof is on the manager to demonstrate that everything was done to prevent an injury occurring.

A test of what is reasonably practicable is usually applied in defence against prosecution in most jurisdictions and usually takes into consideration factors such as:

• foreseeability
• preventability
• reasonableness (for example, cost, administration)
• due diligence.

Causality is a complex legal issue in the context of crowd related accidents and incidents. For example, the definitions of ‘reasonably foreseeable’ and a ‘competent person’ performing the risk assessment, approving the site and signing off on the safety aspects of a major event, needs to be fully understood by an event’s management.

The basis for imposing a duty of care on a person is that the ‘duty of care holder’ makes a specified contribution to, and has involvement in and/or manages:

• the activity, place of work, systems or arrangements whereby work is undertaken
• things used in undertaking the work (such as equipment, services or structures)
• the capability (instruction and supervision) of those undertaking the work.

The primary ‘duty of care holders’ are the persons conducting a business or undertaking. There are also ‘specified classes’ of duty holders who are:

• those with management or control of event workplace areas
• suppliers of equipment, services and materials
• erectors, installers and suppliers of structures.

A ‘duty of care holder’ is not allowed to relinquish or pass on their duties to anyone else (Bluff 2009).

A person can have more than one duty, and more than one person may concurrently have the same duty. Each ‘duty holder’ must comply with the required standard (e.g. reasonably practicable) to the extent of their control over relevant matters, and they must consult, cooperate and coordinate activities with all persons having a duty in relation to the same matter.

In practice this means for example, that the event manager must ensure that a stall holder selling food must do so in accordance with relevant regulations, and is supplied with power, water and waste handling facilities. In turn, the food seller has a duty of care to ensure the facility is clean and safe for staff, the food is correctly stored, cooked and served, and waste is correctly removed.

ALARP: managing hazard to a level that is ‘as low as reasonably practicable’

A key principle is that all duty of care holders must eliminate or reduce hazards or risks so far as is reasonably practicable. Accordingly, the duties of persons conducting a business or undertaking and other ‘duty holders’ are to be qualified by reasonably practicable defined as meaning:

that which is, or was, at a particular time reasonably able to be done in relation to health and safety, taking into account and weighing up all relevant matters including:

• (a) the likelihood of the hazard or risk eventuating
• (b) the degree of harm that may result if the hazard or risk eventuated
• (c) what the duty of care holder knows, or a person in their position ought reasonably to know about:
  1. the hazard, the potential harm and the risk
  2. ways of eliminating or reducing the hazard, the harm or the risk
• (d) the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or reduce the hazard, the harm or the risk
• (e) the costs associated with the available ways of eliminating or reducing the hazard, the harm or the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the degree of harm and the risk.

A test of what is reasonably practicable is usually applied in defence against prosecution under workplace safety legislation in most countries. This takes into consideration factors such as:

• foreseeability
• preventability
• reasonableness (for example, cost, administration)
• due diligence.

In effect, complying with the ‘duty of care’ so far as is reasonably practicable requires ‘duty of care holders’ to implement workplace safety management to identify hazards, assess risks (the degree and likelihood of harm) and eliminate or reduce the risk.

Occupational health and safety

There are specific acts of law in almost every country to secure the health and safety of employees and the public. However, legislation and regulations vary widely from country to country and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For instance, in federal systems such as Germany, Australia and the USA, the laws vary from state to state. The laws have varying degrees of potency, for instance, in Scandinavian countries they cannot be overridden by any other law, whereas in some states in the USA the constitutional right to carry a gun (clearly an issue for event safety) can prevail over safety regulations, although almost all mass gathering events prohibit weapons.

Many of the occupational health and safety (OH&S) issues found in the building and construction industry are those encountered in event management during the production operations phase of an event, particularly if the event is being conducted in a temporary venue or site rather than in a purpose-built facility. There are also similar security and public order issues occurring at events to those found in the licensed premises field.

The event manager must address these legal requirements regardless of the event size. The various laws cover an event manager’s responsibilities towards persons who are employees and contractors, as well as non-employees (including volunteers, contestants, participants, performers and, most of all, attendees) when in control of premises used by persons as a place of work. An event’s location, whether it is in one place or many, a purpose-built venue, a street festival site, or a parade route, is considered as a place of work.

Therefore, it is unconditionally necessary for event managers to be acquainted with the provisions of the various laws and processes. Event locations must comply with OH&S regulations contained in development application approvals. There are severe penalties for breaches and events can be immediately shut down by compliance officers or police.

Defining occupational health and safety (OH&S)

Before going any further, it is probably necessary to be clear about just what occupational health and safety means. The following definition of ‘health’ by the World Health Organization is a good place to start.

Definition box 1.1

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.

The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.

The Australian National Occupational Health and Safety Commission Act refers to occupational health and safety matters as relating to one or more of the following:

• (a) physiological and psychological needs and well-being of persons engaged in occupations
• (b) work-related death
• (c) work-related trauma
• (d) prevention of work-related death or work-related trauma
• (e) protection of persons from, or from risk of, work-related death, or
• (f) rehabilitation and retraining of persons who have suffered work-related trauma.

(Toohey et al. 2005)

Occupational health and safety focuses on work practices and has a different focus to other forms of health and safety-related activities, such as public health, environmental protection, traffic safety, consumer protection, fire safety and personal health. However, the boundaries are not always clear cut and there is often overlap. Workplace safety legislation requires, for example, employers and employees to ensure that their work activities do not put third parties, such as visitors and contractors, at risk. There are elements of public safety in workplace safety law, for example, environment and health and safety are connected when production involves waste, or traffic control is required in the public roads and areas surrounding an event precinct.

OH&S objectives usually include:

• protecting third parties at a workplace
• protecting people at work from injury and illness
• providing for consultation and cooperation between employers and employees ensuring that risks are identified, assessed, eliminated or controlled
• providing for continuous monitoring of health and safety standards.

It is possible to simply define workplace safety as activities preventing injuries or illness at work or removing or reducing the risk of such injuries or illness. The emphasis of such definitions is on being ‘safe from’. This concentration on the safety aspect of OH&S ignores the health aspect from the larger perspective of human needs that extend beyond physical safety and security to include psychological and social needs and promote the health, safety and welfare of people at work (Thompson and Marks 2001).

In legislation, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Event hazard and risk management: regulations and legislation
• 2 Event Safety Management System (ESMS)
• 3 Understanding crowd disasters
• 4 Crowd management planning
• 5 Space and flow in public areas
• 6 Safe site design
• 7 Site management: production and operational work practice hazards
• 8 Food, alcohol and drugs
• 9 Security and law enforcement on-site
• 10 Counter terrorism protective security
• 11 Emergency response
• 12 Incident reporting and investigation
• Appendix: case studies
• Index