Draft27-12

Event Security
Armed police
Earlier, a pair of police
carrying machine-guns
walked across the arena,
on patrol (or just taking a
short-cut?!). Armed police
were also standing at site
entrances from the main
road, the A5, on the
Shropshire-Staffordshire
border. The crowd
evidently took the sight in
their stride.
HAPPY
‘Effective security
doesn’t stop or start at
the fence line and
instead requires close
coordination between
law enforcement, venue
owners and managers,
and emergency
management.’
On venue security, US
federal Department of
Homeland Security
Acting Secretary Elaine
Duke.
v fest stewarding:
We continue our series on the event
security at the summer V Festival at
Weston Park.
Simon Battersby, a Showsec
director, is among those
standing in the way of hundreds
of mainly young V fans, who dash
towards the stage. ‘Slow down!’ he
says, and gestures with his hands out,
palms down. It has some effect. It’s
about 11.30am on the Sunday of the
long weekend pop concert, and the
arena nearest the main stage has just
been opened. Those keenest fans are
hurrying to the stage, to stand at the
front. Their faces show only smiles.
It plainly doesn’t occur to them that
their behaviour could be risky; that
if they trip over the grass they may
hurt themselves and others. Some are
wearing wellies, the sensible footwear
for a festival, or are carrying food
and drink, so can hardly sprint. It’s
a metaphor for all security and risk
management; Showsec have put in a
lot of thought and work into making
that moment safe, and no-one notices.
Everyone only has eyes for the stage.
After the encores
As Showsec the event security and
stewarding contractor pointed out to
Professional Security, V Festival is
like a temporary city; with its own
hospital, police and lighting. Among
the tasks of security staff is to then
clear the arena, on the Saturday and
Sunday night, after the last band
has played its encores; some of the
customers may take some convincing
that it is time for them to make
their way to the camp-site. Before
the arena opens again at 10am, the
ground is cleared of all the troddendown
pizza and drinks cups that tens
of thousands of people are bound
to leave. At 10am, only part of the
arena opens; a part by the main stage
remains fenced off, while crews
prepare the stage. Acts may have
their own requirements such as the
wires to allow a singer to ‘fly’ over
the audience; or an ‘ego ramp’ (the
technical term for that outcrop of
stage that lets a singer strut beyond
the stage proper). Security has to
know all these things in advance to
plan how many stewards are needed
where. By 11am, hundreds of people
It’s only
temporary
are standing, quietly but expectantly,
at the temporary fence, all facing the
stage, about 100 yards away.
Rope control
About two dozen Showsec stewards
are standing along the fence. They’ve
been told to be welcoming, to say
hello, but not to answer any question
as to how the fence will be removed.
If a steward even in good faith gave
a wrong piece of advice, that could
trigger a mass migration of people;
risky. Quite a few fans are waiting at
the end of the fence furthest from the
stage; they evidently have experience
from past years that the stewards will
begin to dismantle the fence there, and
load it on a fork lift truck, and take it
to back stage. The risk is; hundreds
of fans and machinery and stewards
taking down fencing don’t mix. The
mitigation is neat; a rope, held by
those two dozen or so stewards. It
keeps the fans away from the fork lift
truck and two vehicles behind it, to
pick up the fencing foundations, and
shepherds the fans to walk in a curve,
first away from the stage and around
the fencing not yet taken up, and only
then towards the stage. It’s a reminder
that no two festivals are alike, and
how true was a remark by Richard
‘Churchie’ Church. Even stewards
and supervisors who have worked
V or indeed any place in past years
A sequence of photos
showing how the
stewards managed
holding and then taking
up the fence line to the
arena stages. A tape,
uniformed stewards and
the temporary fence;
note on the right the
fork lift truck ready to
begin work on carrying
the fence off the field.
Second: the dismantling
in progress, Richard
Church (grey t-shirt)
superintending. Thirdly:
the work nearly done,
while customers walk
past the rope enclosure
have to attend to the site briefing,
and not think that they’ve heard it
before. Some part of the logistics
may have changed; or, a steward may
have worked at a different site the
weekend before - Showsec also secure
the British Grand Prix at Silverstone,
and the Royal Highland Show; and a
fortnight before V, did the Wilderness
Festival in Oxfordshire for the first
time. In other words, every job is
special; different.
Break-down
A festival, as Churchie says, has its
own ‘ethos’; but from one year to the
next, other parties, police, the council,
may require changes. Hence months
and months of site meetings. Churchie
breaks off for the latest about the
impending break-down of the fence.
He calls it a ‘controlled movement of
a large amount of people: “We try to
mitigate risk as much as is possible.”
Simon and Churchie explain how a
festival crowd may be more eager on
a Thursday evening and Friday, when
all is fresh, but by Sunday they have
got into a routine. By 11.40am, the
temporary fencing and fork lift truck
and rope and all are out of sight, and
the stewards are in a bunch in a corner
of the arena, to be deployed to their
next place, after one more part of the
weekend goes without a hitch. p
l Next month; in the control room.
50 DECEMBER 2017 PROFESSIONAL SECURITY www.professionalsecurity.co.uk
p50 ShowsecV 27-12.indd 3 17/11/2017 12:01