As soon as the phrase ‘health and safety’ is thrown around in a room, it’s immediately treated with stigma.
“Boring!”, your friends might announce, yawning dramatically.
Yes. We understand. It isn’t the most thrilling subject, especially when you want to focus on what makes your event stand out.
Nevertheless, event safety and risk management should be a priority, something to consider long before the actual date. This allows time to prepare and make changes as necessary. So, what should you actually do? What sort of things do you need to think about?
That’s what we’ll explain on this page.
Why event safety and risk management are essential
A well-run event always includes focused elements of health and safety and risk management procedures. While many organisers might choose to skirt around the edges of this legislation, we strongly advise against it.
An efficient safety and risk management programme should reduce the number of severe incidents at your event. In some cases, unfortunate and unlucky things happen. Still, you and your attendees will want to know that you did everything you reasonably could to avoid it.
Safety and risk management play a part in the smooth running of your event. For instance, what if someone falls and breaks their arm? Having a plan in place (such as a trained first responder on standby with a First Aid kit) means this incident can be responded to and dealt with, meaning attendees are more satisfied with your care and professionalism.
Event safety and risk management don’t just involve the attendees, though. You’ll need to think about everyone: keynote speakers, managers, coordinators, the event’s location owners, vendors, the local populous, stewards, volunteers, and waiters and waitresses are just a few of the groups to think about.
How to identify potential risks
By their nature, events come with pretty high risks. The bottom line here is that you’ll be hosting a large number of people – whether that’s tens or thousands. And where there are more people, more things go wrong. For example, a basic conference will most likely have a stage, a microphone, somewhere for the attendees to sit and so on.
Is the stage stable, or will it collapse?
Might it have extruding nails or splinters?
Will someone trip over a trailing wire for the microphone?
How sturdy are the seats?
When approaching potential risks, develop a risk assessment. This is the tried-and-tested method for analysing and planning to reduce risk. Some of the things to consider in your event’s risk assessment include:
- Examine all the equipment that will be on-site.
- Consider the event location’s layout, facilities and supplies.
- Chat with various stakeholders (management, speakers, stewards, volunteers, attendees, etc.).
- Try a run-through of the day (mental or in reality).
- Consider well-known hazards like fire, water, trips, falls, crushes, electric shocks, disease transmission, medical emergencies and more minor cuts and bruises (among many others).
- And so on.
A top tip? Be specific. You’ll be surprised how many risks you can write in one sitting. Include your risk ratings and calculations for the severity and likelihood in the same document. Following that, you may choose to suggest a plan to reduce the risk level, if applicable.
Implementing effective safety measures
Once you know the risks, it’s time to implement measures to reduce them. Your risk assessment should have listed these, so everyone knows who’s doing what and what they should concentrate on. Let’s refer back to the example mentioned in the previous section here:
- Risk: fall injury from stage collapse;
- Safety Measure: professional installation, high-quality products
- Risk: sharp injury to foot from splinter or nail;
- Safety Measure: careful inspection after stage construction
- Risk: trip due to trailing microphone wire;
- Safety Measure: a wireless microphone with a taped-down mains plug wire
- Risk: fall injury due to collapsing seats;
- Safety Measure: inspect all seats before use
Of course, these are just examples. An actual risk assessment document will go into far more detail and contain many more items.
How can Mercian Events help ensure safety at your next event?
Mercian Events is an events organiser based in Worcester, but we can service most of the UK. Our mission is to provide an immersive experience, allowing your target audience to truly understand your message.
An event isn’t just words from a platform or an endless PowerPoint presentation. No, it’s about connecting with your attendees and helping them feel your passion for the subject and how much you love it.
While event health and safety may not feel like your number one priority, it should be. Care for the people at your conference or roadshow will be your responsibility, and a good risk assessment will leave them feeling safe, watched over and looked after.
Is your event becoming overwhelming? Or perhaps you simply don’t know where to start?
Don’t worry. Here at Mercian Events, we work with you every step of the way, from the initial idea to the post-event feedback.
Our dedicated team will help you understand the risks and take effective measures to reduce them.
Interested in how we can help? Get in touch for a completely obligation-free chat about what we do and how we’d be happy to assist.