Making Your Event Secure: A Brief Guide

If you were catering for an event, you wouldn’t dream of just ‘getting in food’. You would plan menus in some detail. Yet when it comes to event security, it’s something that is often shoehorned into planning without a proper definition of what is needed for the particular event, or what is expected from the security hired.

Part of your planning should include having a prevention mindset, rather than just reacting to incidents.

In advance, detail all the things that could cause disruption, so they can be stopped from happening. These might include the event’s date, location, those attending or the potential for media coverage.

Here are some of the things you need to think about:

• Is the event small and localised or a large, public occasion? How wide is interest in it likely to be?
• Who is going to be there? Your staff? Members of the public? Is anyone high-profile or potentially controversial likely to attend?
• What will be the best way of knowing that those attending are those you actually invited? What level of identification will you need?
• Who controls access to the event – and how?
• What’s the worst that could happen? Is it just someone having free food and drink to which they’re not entitled? Or could there be negative media attention – or worse?
• If there are problems, how will issues be communicated? Do you need to let people know what to be aware of and who to talk to?
• At what point would it become necessary to shut down your event completely, and how would you handle this?

Understand the risks and have a mitigation plan in place to minimise potential damage.

Integrating security into your event

Having considered the potential threats and determined what security is needed for each one, here are some basic issues most planners will need to consider:

Fire

You’ll need a plan in place for evacuating everyone in about three minutes, and to be clear on where escape routes are. Share these with everyone who will be present.

Accidents or incidents

What is the quickest way of reaching the nearest hospital? How would you handle a stage collapse? Where should people go to be safe in an emergency?

 Disorder

Have a strategy in place. Talk to local police, and make the most of staff and volunteers to deal with low-level threats. Monitor social media ahead of a sensitive event.

Essentially, security is everyone’s duty, and people know what to do in the event of an incident and who to tell if they notice anything suspicious.

At Venture Security, we are highly experienced in helping all kinds of occasions go smoothly, from corporate hospitality to festivals - in some of the UK’s most prestigious venues. Talk to us about security for your event today.