Why Health, Safety & Mitigation Matter?: Avishkar Tendle's Key Topics for a Safer Event Industry

by  EVENTFAQS Bureau Industry Watch | July 10, 2024 | Feature

Natura Avishkar Tendle

Here are a few key highlights and topics that we need to discuss for a better understanding of the risks we face and how important is safety to our events:

Why are we talking about Health and safety? Apart from the obvious answer of – cause we have to! Let's dig a bit deeper…

Let us understand why we do what we do, whether you are an event manager, celebration planner, production unit, or vendor partner, we all want to experience new things and in turn, want to provide it to our clients, we are constantly searching for the next new unique experience ‘kuch alag sa’ as our clients like to say. I as an adventurer equate the search for a unique experience, to climbing a peak, we are constantly stepping out of our comfort zone and pushing the envelope with an aspiration of achieving something truly magnificent and ‘hatke‘.

Now with climbing a peak comes inherent risks and therefore we need to acknowledge the fact that pushing the envelope is going to be risky, does that mean we should not do it – rubbish, we absolutely should, otherwise our lives would become just as boring and dull as the professions we passed on to get into the field of Live Entertainment and Events. To understand this, let's look at the Peak Adventure model – the model states that there are 2 basic parameters – Risk & Competency, if on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest, Competency = 3, and Risk = 1, then we get into the zone of boring – no one wants to be in that zone, if the same is reversed and Risk = 3 and competency = 1 then we get into a seriously dangerous zone of misadventure, but only when risk and competency are both equal is when we start getting into the Adventurous zone, but is that enough, the answer is no, we need to push a bit more, we are finally trying to climb Everest aren’t we? and so we need to take competency to 8 and risk to just a notch higher – 8.25, now we are truly in the zone of peak adventure, where the competency is very high but the risk is just a tad bit more, therefore giving us feeling of achieving significant success.

Now that we have come to terms with the risk being an inherent part of Events, let's figure out ways of calculating the risk and then work towards categorically mitigating it.

Before we start calculating and mitigating risk we first have to spread the word and get more and more people to buy into the movement, unless and until everyone from our suppliers to our clients don’t buy into the concept, we will become rebels without a cause or lone rangers like me and a few others, and so create a list of guidelines for Members to follow and let it be accessible on the website of associations like EEMA & EESA for everyone to see. Get publications and Digital media houses like Eventfaqs Media and Everything Experiential to push this agenda far and wide, rope them in to run multiple campaigns on why be safe, what are the consequences if you are not, what are the benefits if you are, how much more does it cost to be compliant, what are the challenges, how to overcome them, etc. To keep the buzz going we have to identify outfits that are doing their bit to ensure Health & safety in their organizations, get them to share their processes & protocols and venerate them as A-listers, and make them the poster boys for change leaders.

But before we create Guidelines, it is pertinent that we form an advisory committee of subject matter experts from each of the fields/departments. This committee needs to be handpicked as they will be given the initial task of leading the charge and following up on the implementation of the Guidelines. Along with guidelines, the Advisory Committee (AC) will have to come up with processes and systems for members to easily adopt. They will also have to create milestones and chart out a clear path to becoming Health & safety compliant over the next 3 to 5 years. To ensure we don’t always continue playing catchup, it is equally important to ensure the same subjects are included in the event management courses so that the new crop is born Health & Safety compliant.

While we start rolling out Guidelines, we parallelly also need to start running Education & Awareness workshops for Event Managers, so that they can ask the right set of questions to their suppliers to get all the requirements fulfilled and run multiple Training programs for vendor partners to get their teams trained in the various relevant skills. All Event Managers, Celebration Planner, and Production Units should go through a minimum of a 3-day awareness workshop on Topics such as:

• Crowd Management
• Fire & Electrical Hazards identification
• Pyro/Fireworks planning
• Staging, Trussing & Scaffolding
• Venue Constructs / Hangers / Tents
• Technical (AV) Rigging & Decor Rigging
• Work at Height protocol
• Performer Flying -  Aerial Acts / Entries & Special effects
• Insurances & Liability
• Medical Assistance planning

Cheers and wish you a #RigSafe day every day!

- Authored article by Avishkar Tendle, Director, Natura