Cover Feature
here’s a bit of a tightrope walk
that has to be walked when it
comes to event safety. Where
it come cybercrime, sabotage, terrorism or
anything in-between, it’s hard to see how we
can balance the innate openness of events
with being truly secure.
At the start of April, I attended a
briefing put on by the Association of Event
Organisers (AEO) and hosted by cyber
security firm Digital Shadows.
Among the standard advice that they
would hand out to any company seeking
consultation were elements like avoiding
putting sensitive information online,
avoiding sending sensitive information and
testing up your apps through a community of
security researchers, paying them a bounty if
they highlighted a vulnerability.
The speaker highlighted the now-infamous
Tory Party conference app, which allowed
anyone with an attendee email to log into the
app as that person (and naturally the MPs’
emails were in the public domain) and talked
us through some examples of ransomware.
I left that briefing thinking that perhaps
there was no effective solution to the hacks
and data thefts that are fairly common
in the exhibition industry, reliant as it is
on openness, clear communication and
exchange of information.
Jose Bort of EventsCase will return to the
subject of cybercrime later in this feature
(p25). In the meantime, I thought I’d check
in with a few event profs working in the
security space to try and work out exactly
where the industry stands when it comes to
the safety of the people in our care.
Crowd management
At the end of the day, safety and security
comes down to people, as does maybe every
element of a live event. People are either
happy or unhappy, safe or unsafe, malicious
or benevolent. They’re fickle like that.
I decided to check out how event security
professionals were approaching the perennial
problem of keeping attendees safe.
“It’s like crowdsourcing your security,”
says Geoff Revill, co-founder of Krowdthink.
I’m talking to Revill because, back in
March 2018, Krowdthink won government
funding from the UK government’s Defence
and Security Accelerator (DASA), in a
competition seeking ‘innovative ideas
to reduce the threat from terrorist and
malicious use of explosives and weapons in
public spaces.’
The resulting app, which was launched as a
product only two months ago, takes the basic
premise of an event app and arguably turns
it on its head. It is not event specific, instead
connecting the user with others who have
downloaded it, no matter the occasion. The
app, which has been tested by the Office for
Security and Counter-Terrorism, allows for
quick and easy (and secure) communication
between attendees and, importantly,
between organisers and attendees.
The benefits of this to events are fairly
clear. Revill recalls a recent conversation
with a pharmaceutical company which was
holding an event when the Manchester
Arena attack occurred. Though luckily not
directly affected by the attack, the event
was put into lockdown and the organisers
found themselves unable to effectively
communicate with their attendees, to
explain clearly what had happened and what
was being done.
“It’s not just about prevention, there are
things that you need to do after something
horrendous has happened,” he continues.
“You’ve got to plan for the question, and the
number one thing that solves most problems
is communication – fast, accurate and
authoritative communication.”
Planning, agrees Steve Blake, director at
event security consultancy Storm 4 Events,
is critical.
“When you look at floorplans for
conferencing and events or exhibitions, it’s
all got to be done in the planning,
May — 21