I'm a health and safety specialist for the events industry. AMA

Not specifically, to be honest. We tend to all create our own and adapt them per show etc. as things can be so changeable.

Obviously there’s a core of items that probably always feature but we generally add plenty of event-specific ones too, which can often number way more than those core ones.

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It sounds like there are so many potential risks! What would you say are the top issues that are often overlooked and therefore not planned for?

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Great question. We do a lot of training around events and event safety and we are still seeing the same issues crop up a lot.

People using petrol generators instead of diesel ones.

People not using the correct barriers for the correct purposes / in the correct places.

People not understanding crowd flows.

Badly designed sites.

Inflatables / bouncy castles!

There are a lot of issues that are very common.

Then there are the more unusual ones that you need the contingency planning structures to aid you with and good people to implement them.

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Hi Mark as I am a Saudi who is living in Ireland for almost 10 years :slight_smile: I am very interested to hear your thought of the event industry in Saudi in comparison with Europe ?

Hi Mark, thank you so much for being here! We spend quite a bit of time putting together a risk assessment for our events, but find it is often quite difficult to get venues to do the same. There is also some confusion as to who is responsible / liable for what if something were to occur at an event. Do you have any advice on Event Organiser and Venue Owner Liability and what to look out for?

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Hi Roa.

I think it is a VERY exciting time to be involved in events out there. The events and entertainment ecosystem is only in its infancy, while the resources are there to do some amazing things.

We are enjoying our projects out there and have been doing various events out there for 4 or 5 years now.

It’s an amazing country with some of the friendliest and most professional people I have encountered in our industry working in it.

As an aside - I hope you saw that we currently have some roles we are recruiting for?! Careers

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My advice is that ultimately a judge will decide who’s responsible when something goes wrong. So, as an Event Organiser, take on that responsibility and create YOUR ‘defendable position’.

We are teaching a Professional Diploma in Risk and Safety Management for Crowds and Events at the minute and I’d say the whole class is fed up of me talking about a ‘defendable position’. That’s the reality though. For us, for our clients - we need to be able to defend what we do.

You are right to do your own RAs to have you guys covered. If others don’t see the same value in them, that’s on them.

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Thank you very much for the reply Mark ! And for sharing the career link ! I will have a look and apply for sure !

No problem at all Roa.

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Why did you decide to launch the world’s first Professional Diploma in Risk and Safety Management for crowds and events?

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Thanks Mark - totally agree- risk assessments are so important, even for virtual events which are often forgotten about!

Mainly because people were asking for public courses as they knew we have been developing in-house training for clients for many years.

That and because there was nothing else really available out there in this format and that would be a solid intro to the subject with broad coverage across the 13 weeks of delivery.

It’s a good starting point or addition for people without getting into doing full MSc programmes etc.

We are also currently working with a UK university around offering more courses and training opportunities both to students and industry.

Watch this space, as they say!

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SOOOOO true.

A few of us actually started developing some guidance for exactly that as there’s nothing available but it has stalled, being honest, as we all got busy with other projects.

Virtual events, in some instances, have many of the same risks as physical events plus more.

‘People’ often don’t consider them. . . .

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Happy to knowledge share on Virtual RA’s (which we refer to internally as ‘Disasters and how to avoid them’) . :smiley:

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haha I like that! I’ve heard them called worse!

That’s a wrap folks! Thank you so much Mark for joining us today and for sharing your knowledge and thanks to everyone for their questions.

If you have any other questions for Mark you can message him on here at @Mark_Breen or through email - mark@safeevents.ie

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Thank you all for the questions and engagement. I’ve really enjoyed this.

You will get me at mark@safeevents.ie if I can ever be of any use.

Cheers.

Mark

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Cheers Hannah and Co. for the invite.

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