Scott Carroll Appointed to Board of Directors of Event Safety Alliance (ESA)

By the unanimous consent of its Board of Directors, the Event Safety Alliance (www.eventsafetyalliance.org) today announced the appointment of Take1 Insurance Executive Vice President & Program Director Scott Carroll to its Board of Directors, where he will also serve as Secretary.

“Scott and Take1 Insurance have been tireless advocates for the ESA’s mission since day one, and have played a crucial role in helping the ESA become the industry’s preeminent voice for safety that it is today,” said ESA President Jim Digby.

According to Digby, Carroll has invested considerable time and resources into positioning the Event Safety Alliance in many industry publications and singlehandedly conceptualized and promoted a three-part webinar that introduced the ESA’s message of “life safety first” to a large and diverse audience. “In addition, Scott has personally attended and supported nearly every public event produced by the ESA and has consistently promoted the relevancy of our mission wherever he goes. He has demonstrated an unparalleled commitment to the cause, and we’re honored to have him on the Board of Directors.” 

In accepting his appointment, Carroll noted that, “The cause of the Event Safety Alliance is the cause of Take1 Insurance.  We share the same commitment to making live events as safe as humanly possible.  I am proud of the work we have achieved together and I look forward to making significant contributions to the alliance’s future success.”

Entertainment Experts to Talk Safety and Insurance at Upcoming Event Safety Summit

Hundreds of live event professionals have registered to attend the first-ever summit focused solely on producing safer live eventsthat will take place from December 2-4, 2014 in Lititz, Pennsylvania.  

John Barylick, acclaimed attorney and author of Killer Show, to make keynote presentation. 

If the world has learned anything from the tragedies of the Boston Marathon, the Station Club Fire, the Indiana State Fair stage collapse, the Republica Cromanon nightclub fire in Argentina, and countless other incidents like them, it is that there can be no excuse for not having a well thought out event safety plan in place for every single live event produced anywhere around the world. 

And that plan, according to Take1 Entertainment Insurance Executive Vice President & Program Director Scott Carroll, must include a thorough review by the event producer’s insurance provider.  “The events of the past three years have had an enormous impact on the way insurance companies approach covering live events,” Carroll said today.  “We live in a totally different world than the one we lived in a few short years ago.  The level of scrutiny has increased significantly.  The requirements of coverage have become more demanding, and insurers are requiring more information around issues related to event safety.”

Scott Carroll, together with Susan McGuirl, Senior Underwriting Director at Fireman’s Fund, will lead a special panel entitled “Ensuring the Insurance Partnership” on Thursday December 4th at the Tait Towers campus in Lititz, Pennsylvania.  The panel will focus heavily on explaining how the strategies of underwriting have evolved; understanding the importance of collaboration and partnership between the producer and the insurance provider when evaluating live event risks from the insurance carrier perspective; knowing the various resources that are now available to help producers of live events assess risk, evaluate the aspects of each event that are most likely to cause loss, and resolve pre-loss and post-loss issues; and discussing, in general, how to be better prepared to predict, plan for, and mitigate the next tragedy — hopefully keeping it from ever happening.

Amplifying the importance of learning from past tragedies, Event Safety Alliance Executive Director Jim Digby today announced that acclaimed author and attorney John Barylick will deliver the keynote presentation at the summit. Barylick is the author of Killer Show, a gripping and meticulously-researched account of the conditions and decisions that led to the 2003 Station Nightclub Fire in Rhode Island. Using video from the incident itself, computer reconstructions and burn tests, Barylick will explain the many missteps that resulted in the fourth-deadliest club fire in U.S. history, which claimed 100 lives and injured hundreds more. By examining this tragedy in detail, the ESA hopes to underscore the deadly seriousness of our task as event professionals, and help ensure that nothing like it ever happens again. 

The first-of-its-kind three-day Event Safety Summit symposium and hands-on workshop is designed to increase awareness of the many event safety risks present at live events, and teach event producers to address those risks more effectively.  A complete Event Safety Summit 2014 schedule can be found at Event Safety Alliance web site: www.eventsafetyalliance.org.

Third Take1 Webinar to Focus on the Best Utilization of the Event Safety Guide

The ABCs of the Event Safety Guide: A 60-Minute Primer on Putting the Event Safety Guide to Work for You will again feature the Event Safety Alliance and be held on Wednesday, July 9, 2014 at 2 p.m. EST and feature Joseph Pred, founder and CEO of Mutual Aid Response Services (MARS), based in San Francisco, California. 

After focusing on general and weather-related event safety issues in its first two precedent-setting webinars, Take1 Insurance and the Event Safety Alliance (ESA) will take a more focused, practical look at how to best utilize the ESA Event Safety Guide (available now at the web site eventsafetyalliance.org). "The ABCs of the Event Safety Guide: A 60-Minute Primer on Putting the Event Safety Guide to Work for You" will take place on Wednesday, July 9, 2014 at 2:00PM and once again be hosted by New Bay Media’s Rental & Staging News and moderated by Editorial Director David Keene. 

“More than 1,200 industry professionals registered to participate in our first two event safety webinars,” according to Scott Carroll, Executive Vice President & Program Director of Take1 Insurance, “and we couldn’t be more proud of the response received to date and the requests for follow up information that each webinar has generated.  The live event industry is taking safety to heart and, as the entertainment industry’s leading insurance provider, we understand just how important this is to producing safer live events.”

In addition to Event Safety Alliance Executive Director Jim Digby, the July 2014 webinar will feature Joseph Pred, founder and CEO of Mutual Aid Response Services (MARS), based in San Francisco, California.  MARS provides the special event industry, as well as the non-profit, industrial and corporate sectors with comprehensive consulting, risk management, and operations with a focus on emergency medical, communications and fire services to supplement on-site resources and provide contracted first response to any emergency. Pred has been an active member of the Event Safety Alliance since 2012 and has more than 20 years of experience working in the event management and safety industry. 

Pred’s presentation will include an overview of the Event Safety Guide, how it ties in to existing standards such as the public safety incident command system, and how to use the guide in areas both familiar and unfamiliar to specific areas of expertise. He will walk participants through a demonstration of a typical event and explain how to apply the guide to various aspects of planning and operational phases. A variety of special considerations, such as electronic music events, unfenced or un-ticketed events will also be reviewed. The webinar will conclude with a Q&A period for those who have specific questions about their event and integrating the use of the Event Safety Guide.

“The partnership between Take1 Insurance and the Event Safety Alliance becomes more important every day,” ESA Executive Director Jim Digby said today.  “Take1’s continued sponsorship of these vitally important webinars demonstrates a commitment to event safety that is second to none in the industry today.  They are to be commended for all they do to promote the production of safer live events.”

Event Safety Alliance To Debut Industry’s First Event Safety Guide For Live Event Professionals

After nearly two years of development and the input of hundreds of industry, regulatory and safety professionals, the Event Safety Alliance (ESA) today announced the forthcoming release of the Event Safety Guide — the live event industry’s first comprehensive reference guide of established industry best practices.
 
According to Jim Digby, Executive Director of the Event Safety Alliance, Version 1.0 of the Guide will be available at the LDI 2013 Conference and Tradeshow in Las Vegas (November 21-24) at Booth #2363.
 
“The official release of the Event Safety Guide is an historic milestone in the standardization of safety practices within our industry,” Digby said today. “With the first edition of the guide complete, we now move our focus to efforts helping professionals apply its contents in the planning and safe execution of their events. Among the many developing resources on the horizon by the ESA - safety leadership training for event professionals.”
 
According to Chester Bennington, lead vocalist of multi-platinum rock band LINKIN PARK, “I'm extremely proud of you, Jim, and the immense amount of work you and your colleagues have put into this historic moment.  I'd like to express for the entire music community, both professional and nonprofessional, our gratitude to the ESA for considering our safety, the audiences safety and the well-being of all by insuring that every possible consideration for venue and operational safety and security have been assessed by the industries' top professionals.   The tragedies that will be prevented by your unwavering dedication to all of our safety means that the work of the ESA will — in the greatest way — go unnoticed as we go home each night without incident."
 
Printed editions of the guide will be available for purchase on the Event Safety Alliance website next month. Additionally, eBook versions of the Event Safety Guide will be available for download at several online retailers including Amazon, iTunes and Barnes & Noble. Both formats of the guide will be sold for $49.95, with proceeds from all purchases helping the ESA develop additional resources and further the message of “life safety first."
 
“From the very beginning, our goal has been to have the Event Safety Alliance become the industry’s preeminent safety advocacy trade association," continued Digby. “By making the guide available at a cost below most publications of this type, we believe we can continue to grow the ESA while making sure this critical information is user friendly and gets into as many hands as possible."
 
Developed in response to a series of accidents within the live event industry, the Event Safety Guide is a collection of best practices culled from the experience and insight of top professionals within the event industry, as well as relevant life safety standards currently applicable by groups such as OSHA, NFPA, ICC and PLASA. Prior to the Event Safety Guide, no such comprehensive collection of guidance existed that industry professionals could refer to covering many of the unique hazards the industry faces. Modeled after the U.K.’s “Purple Guide”, the Event Safety Guide is intended to serve as a one-stop reference to help users ask the right questions while planning for and managing events. It addresses a broad range of topics relevant to most events including emergency planning, weather preparedness and personal protective equipment, as well as technical issues such as temporary staging, rigging and special effects. The guide has been intentionally designed for field use, written in straightforward language with contents organized topically to aid in quick access to information.