APRIL | OPINION
3.4 meter solid steel fence as opposed
to T-Hoard 2.4 meter steel fence. Both
products have also increasingly been used to
create road closures in city centres for large
scale events such as London’s New Year’s
Even Fireworks and Manchester Pride.
The scale up in infrastructure combined
with increased security throughout has
been a new challenge for organisers over
the last few years. All of this additional
infrastructure required to deliver a safe
event or react to an unpredicted emergency
puts a strain on budget at a time when there
is so much competition in this sector.
There were many factors we took into
consideration when making a decision on
the trakway products we were going to use
on site and also the provider.
Firstly like all festivals we had to select the
A
side from developments within
technology and innovations borne
from limiting the impact of events
on the environment, there are two other
areas that have been a focus for production
teams and festival organisers: unpredictable
weather and sadly terror threats.
In 2017 and 2018 multiple festivals were
cancelled due to unpredictable weather
leaving festivalgoers out of pocket and
festival organisers the task of trying to
mitigate against the financial and brand
damage repercussions.
Whilst these Acts of God can not be
avoided, they can be prepared for, but festival
organisers trying to manage tight budgets,
often secure the essentials and try and
hold back on the outlay of having additional
infrastructure ‘just in case’, which is when
they become exposed to the risk of having to
shut down early if bad weather hits.
Whilst in the summer of 2018 the UK
basked in unprecedented sunshine, there
were the odd pockets of wet weather which
caused havoc with drainage of the rain on
very dry and baron sites.
This was one of the factors taking into
consideration when Entertee designed,
developed and launched Ali-Mat in 2018.
Entertee wanted to offer festival organisers
a trackway product that could be quickly
deployed in such conditions.
18
Weathering change
Pressures on security, and unpredictable weather, have forced
innovation, says Entertee’s operations manager Dave Cahill
Being delivered in stillages, requiring no
specialised equipment or crew for install
the product can be laid to help get people on
of off-site which often becomes one of the
main reasons that festivals are cancelled
during the bad weather. As the Ali-Mat does
not require specialised equipment and can
be dry-hired it also means that the festival
organiser is hiring in a product that is very
cost effective ‘just in case’ solution.
Entertee has also seen an increase of solid
steel fencing being utilised by festivals over
the last few years. Whilst part of the increase
can be apportioned to the fact that there
are new festivals being launched year on
year, a major factor is because a significant
percentage of the festivals, (especially those
taking place in more city-based locations) are
ramping up security as a result of attacks on
the public like was seen at Wembley Arena in
2017 and on London Bridge.
As well as the increased use of steel solid
fencing at large scale gatherings and events,
some organisers have stepped up security
by scaling upwards; utilising the T-Shield
most cost effective option, and 2018 being
our first year this was even more of a focus.
However of equal importance, if not of
more importance we wanted to ensure
that the most cost-effective solution would
not mean having a substandard trakway
product in use on site, or not enough.
We’ve all heard of stories where festivals
have come unstuck in this situation and
we did not want to make a decision based
purely on cost and be at risk of lessening
the overall customer experience or put our
lovely customers Health and Safety at risk if
we had experienced poor weather.
So when selecting suppliers and products
we needed to also qualify where they could
have a positive impact on the efficiency of
our site build process to help maximise
budget.
For this reason one of the trakway
products we utilised on-site was Entertee
Hire’s newly launched Ali-Mat. The product
is light weight but incredibly strong and can
be laid very quickly and efficiently requiring
a very small crew and a forklift.