Event industry needs to raise awareness about safety at events.

EE News Desk Feb 10, 2020

When it comes to live events industry, anything can go here and there, anything can go wrong, therefore as a community we can come together to take care and give our contribution in the event safety whether it’s a small-scale or a large-scale event.

To have a proper understanding about Safety at Events we had a panel discussion at the BW Applause everything experiential Marketing Summit 2020, where the moderator Nanni Singh, CEO, Showcase Events along with the panellists Khushroo Kekobad, Live on Stage Entertainment, Neale Murray, Co-Founder & COO, Fountainhead MKTG, Dentsu Aegis Network India, Deepak Monga, Head- Fire & Safety, Spartan Fire Evacuation, Allroy Collaco, Assistant General Secretary, FICCI put forward some important insights about the event safety.

The Panellist opined that most of the events teams start in the name of divine and say “God will take care of us” and this shouldn’t be the attitude towards safety at events. Safety should start in our planning process and it should be in discipline. The event person should value people’s life and should take care of the client’s assets. There shouldn’t be low-benchmarks in this area. There is a dire need to change our perspective towards the event safety.

While taking the risk assessment at the time of conducting an event, Khushroo Kekobad, Live on-Stage Entertainment said, “To reduce the percentage of the event accidents we should consider branded equipment and not the Chinese one, we need to consult our vendors before the event and have a checklist of all these things."

On the contrary, Neale Murray, Co-Founder & COO, Fountainhead MKTG, Dentsu Aegis Network India mentioned, “It is in our hands how we protect everybody attending the event. We need to have the right kind of vendors and have trust that they use the right kind of equipment. Also, said 2 very important points, how much may the budget of the client, one has to Convince them for the safety measures and there should be some Standards of the Vendors so they don’t fling the rules."

While making the clients understand that the cost of safety they are putting into, Deepak Monga, Head Fire & Safety, Spartan Fire Evacuation stated that, “The clients need to be shown the government papers of event safety and that certain things are mandatory for every event to happen."

Allroy Collaco, Assistant General Secretary, FICCI opined his views on the challenges faced in the event safety. He mentioned "One has to have forward planning strategies while looking at the event safety and should consider plan B."

The panellist agreed that event safety challenges can be cut off by knowledge and by educating production people, clients and event attendees. Also, this awareness should be raised and must be the mantra of every event company.