AST 'CHAMPIONS' Edition December 2017 Digital-Dec2 | Page 68

Volume 18 captured the behavior of guests as they moved through the hotel and allowed investigators to go back in time and fit the pieces of the “what hap- pened” puzzle together. BREAKING IN OR BREAKING OUT December 2017 Edition place, like using a vehicle to run over pedestri- ans or wielding a knife at the police. What are we going to do, lock up all the vehicles and knives? I don’t think so. Secondly, solutions must be in place before the event occurs. So, usually those events (hazards) that are most likely to occur are dealt with and those that aren’t – aren’t. That said, the fact is some things just can’t be completely prevented no matter how many re- sources you dedicate to them. For instance, it has been noted that the low security fencing at the Las Vegas concert may have saved lives, by allowing them to escape. (Image courtesy of YouTube, Facebook and SGVT) I heard an interview with one of the concert go- ers and he said the security for the event was so tight and the security fencing so good that it would have been impossible for someone to get in without a ticket. As a planner, you try to reduce vulnerabilities to the point that they can be contained or at least when they are exploited and compromised the effects aren’t so bad. Anyone who suggests that the event planners should have anticipated a “guest” shooting out of a hotel window overlooking the concert grounds and could have prevented it is “off their rocker”. Well, the fencing needs prevent people from breaking in but it also needs to allow people to break out – similar to a panic bar on a fire door. Just saying. RISK MANAGEMENT Security is about risk management. It’s impor- tant to understand there are no guarantees. So first, you have to accept the fact that you cannot stop every threat natural or man-made. Some you can and some you can’t. There are a variety of reasons for this; not enough personnel or monetary resources are two of the most common. Also, maybe the threat’s tactics are too common Courtesy of Google Earth and CNN I’ve sat in lots of event planning meetings where different threat scenarios are discussed and in any one of them, if someone had suggested that a person over the course of five days would bring ten guns into a hotel room and after gambling millions of dollars, would knock out a hotel room window with a hammer and start shooting peo- ple, we would have laugh at him or her, maybe even thrown an empty coffee cup or something, 68