Events
Health & Safety
Events Health and Safety
The complex world of event health and safety can seem daunting to even the most experienced organiser.
Safetying is experienced in ensuring safe and healthy events on every scale, from large fields full of moving vehicles and campers to small community events.
Who do we work with?
Local community events
Village greens, town squares, church halls. Small - medium events organised by a group of local volunteers can seem tricky and expensive to manage. Safetying can help navigate your requirements.
Large events
Held in private or public grounds, catering to crowds and requiring additional permission and planning, Safetying can help get everything together and work with SAG on your behalf.
Pride
Safetying is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community and proud to help support and develop safe and happy pride.
How do we work?
Safetying has worked with Events of all sizes, from small local community volunteer-run events to Steam rallies and National Vintage Traction Engine events, to Pride events large and small.
Safetying can help you with:
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Crowd Safety Management
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SAG requirements for planning and event permissions
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Event contractor management
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Event Fire Safety
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Event Fire Risk Assessment
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Martyn's Law requirements
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Volunteer safety management
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Focussed training
Check out our Services page for more details, or feel free to contact us directly to talk about what we can do for your venue. For more information on the training we offer, check the Training page.
Events Health and Safety
Responsibility for the Health & Safety of my event
Event health and safety is the responsibility of the event organiser; if this is a committee, then the committee is responsible, with the chair taking ultimate accountability.
Event health and safety considerations
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Your venue and the potential hazards it includes. Whether indoors or outdoors, holding an event includes bringing a large group of people together and planning for them to interact safely with your event and each other. Planning the right venue can help you keep people safe, so it should be the key consideration of any event. Remember, even when this is a public place such as a street or open field, you must still ensure that you can gather safely and take into consideration the potential effect on local residents, passing members of the public, and vehicles that are not part of your event.
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Crowd safety - managing how people react in emergencies, weather, alcohol (if you are serving it or inviting people to BYO) - you are inviting this crowd, so you must think about how to keep everyone safe and stop crushing and bottlenecking.
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Hygiene and the environment - depending on the type, size, and activities of your event, you may be required to provide toilets and handwashing facilities (you are not allowed to put this on local pubs and businesses). Also, you must ensure that litter and waste are taken into consideration.
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Security and terrorism - Events have duties under Martyn's Law, and you need to check the level of that duty and ensure you have plans to avoid harm and deal with it effectively should anything happen. The level of duty does change according to the size of your event; however, you should always check, assess, and plan accordingly.
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Fire and evacuation - Even in open air, unfenced/open spaces, you must understand the potential for the start and spread of fire and plan for how a crowd will behave. Here, you will need to ensure you have considered your layout and the fire safety controls for any catering you may have.
What about volunteers?
If you are running the event with the help of volunteers, you must provide the volunteers with information to keep themselves safe whilst supporting the event and on how you expect them to keep your event safe - what are their duties, and how can they complete these safely?
Do I need permission to use public spaces?
Yes, to hold an event in a public space, you must seek permission from the local council, and you may require a temporary events notice to be issued. This will require submission of health and safety plans and details to the council's Safety Advisory Group, which will issue the permission for your event.
If you are planning an event and would like expert support with health and safety, then please get in touch.
Finance vs Safety
The price of compliance may have you running for the exit or burying your head in the sand; however, the universal truth remains - prevention is cheaper than the cure.
Knowing you need to ensure safe environments should not be a gamble on how long you can hold out. Safetying was created to help make sure Health and Safety is accessible and not an expensive imposition. Everything we do for you is priced in advance, and we always work to make the solution fit the budget - even where there is no budget!
For more information on how we can make Health and Safety affordable for you, please see our prices page or let's have a brew and see how we can help.