Safety at events
10 April 2024
Risk management and events, how to protect your staff, visitors and volunteers.
Planning an event
Many organisations host events either as part of their normal activities, to build morale amongst staff or to raise funds for good causes. They can be quite diverse in nature from concerts, fêtes, firework displays to charity walks etc.
Most of the time, such activities represent little or no additional risk. However, larger events or those involving unusual activities can present more significant ones. These will need to be properly managed to ensure people remain safe.
Managing health and safety at events
Whatever the event, you should:
- Plan for the event
The level of detail of this should be proportionate to the scale of the event and the degree of risk associated with it - Plan for incidents and emergencies
- So that you can respond promptly in an appropriate manner. Again, this will be dependent upon the level of risk presented by any event.
- Manage the event so that it runs safely
Here you may need to ensure adequate co-ordination of the activities; provide training for employees and volunteers; monitor the precautions you have put into place and so on.
In many cases, you will need to:
- Consider the viability of hosting the event you want to hold, given the venue, resources and expertise available to you
- Decide if you need more specialist advice on health and safety
- Check to see if you need a licence to run the event
- Check that your insurance cover and that of others is adequate for the event
- Check other contract arrangements (e.g. those with attraction providers or relating to hiring premises or equipment)
- Plan the event, completing any necessary risk assessments if you are required to do so
- Check if there are activities which could present additional or unusual hazards (e.g. bouncy castles), identifying any additional precautions that are required
- Determine if you will need to use contractors and if so how you will check they are suitable and competent
- Liaise with other agencies (e.g. the Garda ,emergency services or Local Authority) where appropriate
- If the scale and nature of the event warrants it, hire/appoint a professional to prepare a specific event safety plan
- Implement your arrangements (including any checks or inspections) to ensure the event runs safely
- Establish your procedures for dealing with incidents and emergencies
- Provide information and training for any employees and volunteers on what they need to do
- Provide the right welfare facilities (e.g. first aid, toilets).
Your obligations when organising an event
In general you need to ensure the event is properly managed so that people remain safe ensuring that any event does not cause injury to another because you have acted negligently. If you are an employer, you must comply with the Safety, Health & Welfare At Work Act 2005 and the Safety, Health & Welfare At Work (General Application) Regulations 2007. Even if you are not an employer you may still have to comply with certain aspects of the Act or with other related law.