Integral For Hedley safety should be the starting point for all event planning .
“ It ’ s so integral , so important ,” she says . “ Our exhibitors and our clients trust us and our reputation to execute an environment for them to do business , in a fun way , in a pleasant way in a professional way .
“ They don ’ t necessarily think about health and safety until it goes wrong , but they are not going to come to a show where people have been injured . That ’ s quite damaging and people won ’ t want to be associated with that event or brand .
“ Safety , is one of the elements that ’ s embedded in what the operations teams have to do on a daily basis . That makes the delegates and the exhibitors have a stressfree , happy , fun , professional event .
“ You can do it retrospectively , but it just adds headache . The earlier you think about safety , risks , hazards , the easier it is .”
Training Safety is so significant to Hyve ’ s planning , that everyone from the chief executive officer down has annual training .
“ At Hyve we have that commitment to safety training from the top down . So Mark Shashoua and the entire executive and senior management team all sit in a room and do training for a day on directing safely . They don ’ t need to know the ins and outs like the operations teams , but it gives them a bit of a reality check and a wake-up call that if it goes wrong , it could be pretty bad . It ’ s very expensive , it ’ s loss of reputation , it ’ s morally a massive issue . So , it gives them a bit of a reminder of why we ’ re doing it .”
Unique industry The events industry is uniquely placed when it comes to health and safety planning Hedley says . Whilst some of the same risks may be present – the temporary nature of events and the times scales add extra pressure .
“ When you work with health and safety professionals outside of the events industry , what I have found is they have struggled to understand the greyness
“ I want the weird and wonderful and spectacular events . I don ’ t want us to have boring , small , no double-decker shows .”
of events . We ’ re a construction site , but we ’ re not really a construction site . We can ’ t say ‘ we ’ ll just stop this here for five hours or six hours while we figure out how we are going to do it safely ’. We can ’ t do that , because we got to show to open and there ’ s an absolute deadline .”
Understanding She believes the unique circumstances of exhibition organising has led to an increase in overarching roles like hers at larger organisers . She says it helps straddle some of the difficulties between departments .
“ What ’ s becoming more common , and I ’ ve seen it at Hyve obviously , but also RX and other places is having a health , safety and security manager or director role . Security wants to keep the doors closed . Health and safety wants to keep the doors open . If they don ’ t talk and they don ’ t plan together , things don ’ t work . They need to have a connection with operations and understand that environment .”
Integration By integrating safety from the start even more amazing events are possible she says .
“ In other industries where there is time they can allow themselves to be very picky and very slow , whereas in the events industry , you need to figure out a way round and open those doors .
“ I want us to make shows as amazing and spectacular as we can . That ’ s what we ’ re in it for . But as long as there is some time to plan , and we know what we are doing , then we can look at how we can do it safely .” EN
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