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.

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.