Despite years of collective experience in event planning, every year events are impacted by poor planning, severe weather, security threats and other 'unforeseen circumstances'. More often than not those responsible will initially respond that the incident was unpredictable and had little precedent. Subsequent investigations (and often these are fatal incident enquiries) invariably discover that not only were the events foreseeable and predictable, but they have happened before, albeit somewhere else in the world.

Given the growth of international and national major events, it is essential that those involved at all command levels have a fundamental understanding of issues related to event security, crowd safety and management.

This course will equip those charged with responsibility for large scale crowd events to be able to consider crowd management and safety plans and evaluate their effectiveness and efficacy. By doing so it will enable them to challenge irregularities and flaws in those plans and ensure standards of crowd safety management are fully integrated into operational plans.  The focus of the course is on strategic and operational considerations, with a strong emphasis on crowd dynamics and management.

For more information please contact us

The course will be spread over three days:

Day One: Overview of Major Event Planning

• Introduction to Event Security and Management
• Legal context – guidance, contracts, H&S, risk management
• Impact of major events
• Strategic and operational planning
• Health and safety / risk management
• Partnership working
• Comparison of roles and responsibilities of organiser / supplier / agencies
• Public safety and crowd management techniques
• Crowd psychology
• Differences between crowd management and crowd control
• Contingency planning
• Role and involvement of emergency services

Day Two: Strategic and Operational Considerations

• Scenario of a major event
• Strategic and operational planning
• Key strategic considerations
• Stakeholder considerations: working with key agencies and authorities
• Understanding the legal context and current legislation
• Signage, exits, sound systems, stewards, lighting, temporary structures, etc.
• Examination of guidance - Green guide, Purple guide, managing crowds safely
• Decision-making under pressure and the use of decision-logs
• Command structures and best practice
• Case studies in crowd management
• Security threat assessment and risk management framework
• Health and safety responsibility and management
• Alcohol and crowds
• Keeping rival groups apart
• Comparison of roles and responsibilities of organizer / supplier / agencies

Day Three: Crowd Management and Contingency Planning

• Crowd psychology
• Basic crowd management techniques
• The critical differences of crowd management and crowd control (and why the former is preferable)
• The science of crowd dynamics
• An integrated safety model - how crowd safety considerations from the outset can prevent both expensive modifications and crowd disasters
• Operational management
• Resources required
• Command structures and reporting procedures
• Contingency planning
• Causation factors of crowd disasters - the basic groups of errors that lead to fatalities
• Lessons learnt - a look at recent incidents and how to prevent repetition
• Reporting and crisis planning
• Terrorism issues
• Conclusions

Fee: £2100 + VAT

Book This Course: Event Security