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Event Security our day at v: Check-in for the weekend Having started front of stage last issue, we continue our access (nearly!) all areas day at V Festival by seeing and hearing about the work behind the scenes by event security contractor Showsec to bring their steward teams to the arena. Right: An SIA-badged Euan Fury; and above, the way in for Showsec stewards to report for duty and be checked Photos by Mark Rowe 48 HAPPY ‘Those who have been to Creamfields before will know that searches are a condition of entry and drugs dogs will be used at the entrances to the site.’ Before another August festival, Creamfields, Cheshire Police Insp Mark Gammage. The signing in and processing areas for Showsec staff were quiet on the Sunday morning of the festival; it had been different on earlier, as on the Thursday and Friday, when many of the thousand or so stewards and security staff reported for duty. During a talk at the UK Security Expo last winter, Showsec MD showed a photo of the check-in area for another (unnamed) event security contractor: an empty tent. As ever, a picture was worth a thousand words; Mark’s point - some event security contractors are as casual as their workforce. Check-in Showsec’s check-in tents had much in common with airport check-in; your credentials and photo-ID are checked, and you get accredited. At an airport, it’s a boarding pass; for the steward, it’s a wristband. V is a weekend of music and customers can camp, including the night before and after. Likewise many Showsec workers will make a weekend of it, and camp at night (away from the public), because like the customers, the stewards may come from all over the country. Having checked in, the staff are allocated an area, and a supervisor; the stewards then meet their supervisor (who wears a different-coloured short-sleeved shirt from the Showsec steward’s yellow) for a briefing. From the ‘deployment pen’ (and yes, Showsec are still looking for a friendlier word that doesn’t sound like a farmers’ market) the steward teams walk into the arena, which is behind a ‘green shield’, a solid and tall (too tall to climb over or see over) temporary wall. Other, more temporary fencing, abounds in the grounds of the venue, for example keeping customers off the Weston Park house itself. A Showsec steward was sitting on guard inside the fence, enough to deter anyone from trying to trespass, whether to burgle or just NOVEMBER 2017 PROFESSIONAL SECURITY for a lark. Ieuan Fury, Showsec’s West Midlands manager, told Professional Security that the company pulls staff from all its offices: Glasgow, the south coast, London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield. Showsec also uses some (SIAapproved) contractors. Those workers too are checked-in. About 960 in all; and when you add the admin people, Showsec had more than 1000 on site. Numbered wrist Inside the second tent, having been accredited, the stewards file past more admin people. Each steward has a numbered wristband; also, if they’re camping, their tent will be numbered, so if a steward is needed for whatever reason, at least there’s more chance to find it than ‘the red tent next to the big blue one’. Every weekend event has similarities and yet is different, which makes the need for working to a system from the start. As Showsec are a crowd management contractor, they can see the irony if they can’t manage their own crowd well!? If you’re doing a ‘licensable activity’, do you have a (valid) SIA badge, and does it belong to you and not your brother or mate?! If you’ve brought luggage, you don’t want to mislay it. If you’re working near the stage, you need ear plugs, which are handed out at checkin, although Professional Security found ample pairs in their plastic wrapping in the pit area too. “Excuse me? Got your meal vouchers?” says one of the admin staff to a steward while Professional Security is inside check-in. Different colours Ieuan talks us through the different colours of wristband and ID document worn around the neck, part of the briefing material for supervisors. There’s about a dozen (‘it’s like the Da Vinci Code’ as Ieuan puts it). He means that it’s quite intricate; but all for a reason. Even a ‘security’ wristband like the one Professional Security is given does not give you permission backstage - how would it look if we or a steward went unannounced into the dressing room of Pink, that evening’s headline singer?! Besides, think of safety; behind the stage out of sight to the audience, there’s only parked coaches (for the stage crews) and portable buildings; hardly glamorous, and hazardous potentially. Flying visit V famously has its artists at one venue on the Saturday and the other on the Sunday. So VIP wristbands are for one day or the other, so a Saturday wristband cannot be handed over to mates. That’s not to suggest the bands might do that; in any case, a star might not wear a pass-wristband at all, but leave it to their escort to carry it for them. In any case, the performers take the pass off, when they are on stage. The likes of Jay-Z may only be around for an hour; they may choose to fly in by helicopter, perform, and leave. Glamorous; but a job of work like any other. p l Next issue: how to take down a temporary fence. www.professionalsecurity.co.uk
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