Features
Pollstar Live!: Safety & Security Best Practices
Comedian Ralphie May, of all people, noted at the Pollstar Awards show that it’s been nearly 15 years since the Station fire in Rhode Island. It’s also been four years since the Indiana State Fair stage collapse.
The late-night evacuation of 90,000 people at Electric Daisy Carnival was three years ago, the same year Lollapalooza was evacuated, briefly, because of a potential storm. The Cheap Trick stage collapse in Ottawa was four years ago. Looks like we’ve solved all the safety and security problems. What else is there to talk about?
Of course, that’s an overstatement but it isn’t an insensitive quip, either. There have been great strides made over the past decade to make events safer, and it has been a top priority. Event safety isn’t just about preventing disasters; it’s also about making it invisible so patrons don’t feel they’ and the
AEG employs 750 security and guest service personnel for the venues. “We’re not looking for somebody with a security mindset,” Zeidman said. “We’re looking for somebody who has a guest services mindset. We’ll teach them security.” AEG provides extensive, three-day training, 15 hours a day, Zeidman said. There is no classroom experience – all of it takes place in the venues, where the employees learn best practices so that, once they graduate, they’re ready to work the events, and they have the ability to shift between the two venues.
“In 1999, when the Staples Center opened, we contacted out security, then realized we didn’t know where they came from, what training they had,” Zeidman said.
Simon Lamb, general counsel for Insomniac and all of its events including the massive Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, is also a coordinator for the events’ safety concerns. Unlike L.A. Live, Insomniac (as is the case of practically all event organizers) doesn’t have the benefit of having a consistent staff of security personnel and must contract them from third parties.
“First and foremost, we call our fans ‘the headliners,’” Lamb said. “We make sure they are treated in a friendly way. If somebody doesn’t have an answer, you’ll find somebody who does. EDC has 130,000 people a day, and there’s a security force of 1,000. If a person asks a security guard, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ and the guard doesn’t know the answer, it doesn’t hurt the security company. But our fans come with the expectation that we have a staff that has the answers.” During the panel, it was mentioned that the Gathering of the Vibes festival has addressed this by setting up a “hotline.”
It wasn’t explained in detail but Pollstar considered it worth looking into, so we called Vibes promoter Ken Hays for answers. Hays says that before the event, the office phone number gets forwarded to an onsite trailer that acts as a concierge service where 35 employees and volunteers answer questions, and are available 24 hours. The event has 300 guards and 500 volunteers but, Hays said, the phrase “I don’t know” is not allowed. If a staffer does not know the answer, patrons are provided the hotline phone number. Concerns can be anything from ticketing to parking to first aid to locking their keys in the car. Ross Hollman of security company SHO Services ran off many recent changes in the security space. Wristbands are now often purchased by patrons before they even arrive at the events. Wristbands with RFID chips and cashless payment capabilities mean, from a security perspective, that “we know who you are, if involved in an incident.”
The wristbands can tell where people are on the grounds, where they’ve been and what they’re spending their money on. There are more integrated command posts and better weather monitoring, right down to mobile apps. There is better cell phone and Wifi coverage that allows security cot communicate with people who may not have a radio. Security can now monitor private Facebook and Twitter accounts and use software to geo-locate Facebook and Twitter posts. EDM and other events are now hiring private services like privately run narcotics officers who do not arrest people.
“The idea is it’s a prevention activity,” Hollman said. “The goal is to get the stuff out of people’s hands and not send people to jail.” Bart Butler of Rock Solid Security noted that one of the primary concerns is cost. His clients tend to focus on their budget. His company can assess that an event needs 35 staff but clients will respond, “We’ll make do with 25” and it kills the integrity of the event. He added that Rock Solid asks to be involved in any preliminary meetings regarding the events.
Dr. Andrew Bazos of CrowdRx was recently featured in Pollstar. His company handles onsite medical attention. Many event planners consider medical staff an afterthought. They’ll arrange for an ambulance and EMTs to be on standby.
“You can’t give an ambulance the job of event safety,” Bazos said. “They have an agenda to take people away to a hospital, and that gives a black eye to the event. I once saw an event of 2,500 and the EMTs took 29 people to the hospital. That’s 1 percent of the patrons.” He added that his staff is always in communication with the security personnel. “We’re only as good as the security that can identify a problem and get it to us quickly,” he said. The panelists time and time again stressed the importance of tabletop exercises – a term commonly associated with the Department of Homeland Security that basically means a discussion among key personnel about potential scenarios. Zeidman especially stressed the importance of such exercises. In fact, when an audience member talked about an unfortunate situation (a stabbing) at her 400-capacity venue, tabletop exercises was considered a solution – it’s not just for big events and large venues.