The creation of the first safety handbook for concert production professionals and a new severe weather alert system for the outdoor touring business are among the accomplishments in the past year of the Event Safety Alliance, which was created in response to a string of concert tragedies in 2011, including seven deaths at the Indiana State Fairgrounds when a wind storm caused stage rigging to collapse at a Sugarland concert.
The goal of the ESA is to educate touring professionals on best practices in event management. The group has made “significant progress” in the last year, according to executive director Jim Digby, who also is the production manager for Linkin Park.
Following the events of 2011, Digby and other industry experts created the ESA to share information to help increase fan safety. The alliance now has more than 2,000 members and is working on the first safety handbook for U.S. touring professionals, “The Event Safety Handbook.” (The United Kingdom has long relied on the so-called “Purple Guide,” last revised in 1999.)
“Nothing like this exists,” Digby says. “There currently is no [reference guide] for anyone who wants to learn the business or educate on how to do it better. We want people to read it and comment on it. It’s the only way we can build any real consensus behind what we’re doing.
“Even if you were a well-informed production manager,” Digby adds, “and wanted to do the right thing and make sure you were complying with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Fire Protection Assn., the International Code Council–even if you wanted to do that stuff, you would have to spend weeks, if not months, just trying to find and determine which of their regulations and standards apply to you.”
“The Event Safety Handbook” attempts to bring together “all of those standards that currently apply whether you know it or not and try to tell you where they apply and reference them,” Digby says.
Dr. Donald Cooper, a retired Ohio fire marshal, is offered to be the guide’s primary editor, working with touring writer Debi Moen. Meanwhile, veteran event producer Steve Lemon is heading up task groups for each of the chapters.
The ESA has also partnered with Weather Decision Technology to create Weather Ops. “Forecasts and alerts are provided to the client via Internet, SMS, mobile apps, mobile push alerts and direct phone access to a meteorologist 24/7,” according to the company’s website.
The next step for the ESA is to raise money for its efforts. “Nothing that we’re doing is for profit,” Digby says. “We want everybody to win and we want the process of safety to be easier.”
Digby also hopes the alliance’s efforts will “influence the next generation that’s going to be working in this business and raising the bar on the live safety standards.”