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.”

Second Take1 Webinar To Focus On Incorporating The Latest Weather Technologies Into An Event Safety Plan

Responding to requests from a wide range of professionals for a safety webinar focused specifically on producing safer outdoor events, Take1 Insurance, the leading insurance provider to the entertainment industry, today announced that it will host a webinar focused on how to best utilize the latest advances in weather forecasting and monitoring technology — Weather First: A 60-Minute Primer on Incorporating Weather Technology in Outdoor Event Safety Plans.
 
According to Scott Carroll, Executive Vice President & Program Director of Take1 Insurance, the leading entertainment insurance provider is again teaming up with Event Safety Alliance (ESA) to ensure the March 19, 2014 webinar is as compelling as the inaugural event safety webinar that was held last November. The March 19 webinar will take place at 2:00PM eastern standard time and is open to anyone involved in the business of producing and staging live outdoor events. Registration for the webinar is now open here.
 
“Incorporating the latest advances in weather forecasting and monitoring into a comprehensive safety plan is probably the single most important thing a producer can do to ensure a safer outdoor live event,” Carroll said today. “Weather affects every aspect of an outdoor live event. From an insurance perspective, when it comes to weather planning, we are going to want to know, in some specific detail, how the weather will be managed and monitored at the show site.”
 
Elaborating further, ESA Executive Director Jim Digby noted that the webinar will focus specifically on issues like weather planning and "predictive weather forecasting" vs. "nowcasting," and show stop/hold planning. “I am very proud to announce that this webinar will involve the participation of David VandenHeuvel, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Services at Weather Decision Technologies (WDT) in Norman, Oklahoma and a founding member of the ESA. David has over 32 years of weather and safety experience, 23 years of which were in the United States Air Force (now retired). WDT has developed custom weather decision aids and services specific to the live event industry, including interactive maps, alerting and mobile applications.”
 
According to Digby, in 2013 WDT provided weather support for over 1,500 events around the globe, including Linkin Park, Paul McCartney, and the just completed 2014 Super Bowl in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

More Than 375 Live Event Professionals Turn Out For Industry-First Webinar On Live Event Safety

A record-setting 377 live event professionals turned to their computer screens yesterday afternoon to participate in the industry’s first Webinar focused on promoting Live Event Safety. Sponsored by Take1 Insurance, in conjunction with the Event Safety Alliance, the event was hosted by New Bay Media’s Rental & Staging News. The Webinar is now available for all to access at this web site.
 
“We are thrilled with the turnout for this critically important first step in making event safety a first priority for producers of live events, the owner/operators of venues where live events are held, and the municipalities that host them, along with all live event service firms who work these shows every day” explained Scott Carroll, Executive Vice President & Program Director of Take1 Insurance. “More than 820 professionals registered for the Webinar and 377 of these pre-registrants actually participated in the event. These are great numbers for a free Webinar and the questions posted afterward revealed significant interest in this topic.”
 
According to Carroll, the timing of the Webinar comes as the Event Safety Alliance prepares to introduce the industry’s first comprehensive Event Safety Guide. “The availability of this Guide is going to have a permanent impact on the way the insurance industry approaches coverage in the future. Insurance providers, like Take1 Insurance, are going to ask if clients know about the Event Safety Alliance, are aware of the Event Safety Guide, and use the Event Safety Guide to prepare an Event Safety Plan,” Carroll asserted. He advised everyone involved in producing live events to ‘underwrite the underwriter.’ “All carriers in the live event space are not alike. If your carrier doesn’t value what you do in terms of safety precautions, then maybe you should consider finding a carrier who does.”
 
According to Jim Digby, Executive Director of the Event Safety Alliance, “We’re all in this together — event producers, venue owner/operators, municipalities, promoters, and first responders. We all have a legal as well as a moral obligation to make live event safety our very first priority when it comes to producing and staging a live event. The Event Safety Alliance was formed to make this goal a reality so that we no longer have to witness the tragedies that have occurred over the last number of years in Toronto, Rhode Island, Indiana, and Brazil. Together, we can make the production of live events infinitely safer for everyone involved.”
 
According to Digby, the ESA Event Safety Guide will soon be available for purchase on Apple iTunes, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble as well as directly from the Event Safety Alliance website.
 
According to Carroll, Take1 Insurance, together with the Event Safety Alliance, will be hosting a series of follow up, subject-specific Live Event Safety Webinars in 2014.
 
The Event Safety Alliance was founded in 2011 by Jim Digby, a 30+ year veteran of the entertainment industry. He is the founder of Collaborative Endeavour Group (CEG), providing international touring strategies and complete production solutions for the live entertainment industry. He currently serves as Director of Touring and Production for the multi-million selling artists Linkin Park, and has previously worked with artists as diverse as The Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi and Marilyn Manson. A long-time advocate for event safety and ethical touring models, he is a three-time recipient of Tourlink’s “Production Manager of the year” award, as well as the Parnelli’s “Production Manager of the Year” award for 2012.