Contingency planning – expert advice from Claire Miller

Any event comes with risks and things can go wrong, so it’s important have an appropriate level of contingency planning, especially for dealing with emergencies.

Claire explains: “Every event organiser should do some level of contingency planning, and I’m sure do some of it naturally as part of common-sense measures.”

For Claire, the important areas organisers should focus on are:

• Good accessibility for emergency services, without affecting or getting in the way of attendees leaving the event.
• Provision of medical/welfare for any injuries.
• Deciding on how you would communicate with your attendees quickly and effectively.
• Ensuring any staff and volunteers are fully briefed on how they should respond during an incident.
• Having clear plans in place for adverse weather.

For new or less experienced event organisers, Claire offered the following advice on contingency planning.

“Don’t let the name put you off. What you are looking to do is think about various scenarios and what you would do to keep people safe. Thinking about how you would deal with adverse weather is a good place to start.”

Activities to undertake

There are several activities that an event organiser should be doing to support a ready and resilient event.

Claire states, "A thorough risk assessment should be undertaken, thinking about all stages of the event: build, de-rig and during. Additionally, thorough briefings for all staff and volunteers involved. If your event is larger in scale, then it might be assessed by the Police regarding current threats, for which they will provide proportionate advice and recommendations.”

You should consider:

• how people will arrive and leave your venue
• whether roads or other areas should be temporarily shut
• what agencies you might need help from in this area

“Welfare, medical and Zone Ex (the area outwith the event or venue footprint) all need to be considered by major events to ensure good and safe links to transport hubs.”

Claire also stresses the importance of protection for events organisers.

For example:

• public liability insurance
• cancellation insurance
• robust contracts

“Over and above all of this I would say maintaining good relationships with all the partners involved in planning and delivery of the event is very important. Teamwork makes the dream work”

Support resources

Knowing where to look for support when starting out can be a challenge, so what resources would Claire recommend to support event contingency plans?

“A good starting point is the Purple Guide which has lots of chapters on all areas of event management. We also have a good event organiser guidance document on the Council’s website which will help you navigate planning an event in Edinburgh.

“If you want to delve in deeper, the UK Resilience Academy run courses relating to event and crowd safety. There are lots of other great courses out there on all sorts of topics, such as show stop procedures, risk and safety management, crowd psychology, and lots more. We are happy to advise on what we think would be useful topics for you, based on the type of event.”