If you have been tasked with organising an event you will be responsible for arranging a huge number of different things all at once, from catering to guest lists and stage placement.
Organising event security is perhaps the most important task for any event manager, but far too often this crucial factor is overlooked and left to the last minute.
Here are 5 tips for ensuring your event has the proper security, keeping guests and VIPs safe and protected at all times.
1. Get to know the venue
Every event is different and the security measures which will be required will depend heavily on the venue, the surrounding area, and a number of other factors.
To ensure that your security is the best it can be, it is vital that you do a full survey of the platform and the surrounding area beforehand.
If the area where you are hosting your event, for example, has a high crime rate, you may need to hire additional security staff or install additional measures than you would in another area.
It is also worth checking if the venue itself has its own security staff who will be able to give you all the information you need based on their experience of similar size events in the past.
If you would rather leave this to a professional, then your local security firm here at Prime Secure will be delighted to conduct this survey for you, with one of our highly trained experts using their trained eye to identify the measures that need to be put in place to ensure your event runs as smoothly as possible.
2. Know the event
If you have been tasked with keeping an event secure, it is important that you have an in-depth understanding of the event itself and the possible security threats that may arise.
Are there 100 people attending or 10,000? Are there VIPs that need additional protection, what time is the event taking place?
These are just some of the questions, among many, that you will need to know the answers to before you can begin to plan an effective security strategy.
This information will be used to decide where security officers would be deployed most effectively, where access control and crowd control are required, and whether any specific security equipment is required.
3. Make a Plan
Having effective security in place is essential to ensure the safety of guests during an event and should be taken extremely seriously.
Having a well-designed clear security plan based on intelligence gathered will help your security team know their role at every single moment throughout the event and help run a smooth, and most importantly safe, operation.
Some of the things that should be included in your event security plan include:
- Security guard positioning
- VIP areas
- Entrance and exit points – Including any access control technologies that will be required.
- The routes taken by mobile patrol security guards
- Placing and guarding requirements of any stage area.
4. Hire Professional Staff
You could have the best event security plan even to be created, but it will only be effective if carried out by a team of fully trained, qualified, and experienced security professionals.
Every single individual that you hire to carry out any sort of security role at your event should hold the relevant licences for that position and should be registered to provide security services.
Not only is this crucial to the safety of guests and VIPs, but a failure to do so will invalidate any insurance you have for the event and there could be legal repercussions.
All security officers that you hire should be SIA licensed at a minimum, and it is essential that you keep track of their identities using ID cards and cross-check their entries.
Unprofessional staff may also be susceptible to letting individuals without a ticket or who are banned from such events into the venue, which would make your security plan, based on a certain number of attendees, redundant, and put all other guests at significant risk.
5. Utilise Security Equipment
Security technology has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, and providing effective security has never been easier as a result.
Access control gates, CCTV, and alarms should be used in any major event as standard, making if far easier for your Event security team to keep an eye over the entire venue and control exactly who is on the premises at any one time.
If you are hosting an event somewhere that doesn’t have permanent CCTV, Alarms etc. such as is the case with a festival or similar there are a range of temporary alternatives available.
Mobile CCTV towers, that required no mains electricity access, and can easily be installed and taken away when the event is finished, are a great example of how technology can be utilised to maximise event security in the modern age.
