The recent tragedy of the cruise ship Costa Concordia serves as a vivid reminder to those of us in the events industry that we need to prepare for possible emergency situations at our events. I’ve been involved with events since 1978 (there were no child labor laws back then).
Since that time, I’ve seen a plethora of incidents occur: Heart attacks, Childbirth, Injuries, Suicide, Public intoxication, False Fire alarms, Fires (with real flames), Property damage, Flooding, Public fighting
First step – Analyze what risks are likely to occur during your event.
You are not going to be able to plan for every contingency. I was working at an event this past August, when the east coast earthquake struck. To be honest, we hadn’t planned for the earthquake as one of the possible incidents. But we were able to adapt our planning that we had done on how to evacuate in case of other emergencies.
