Date published: 13 Jan 2025
Nicole Stephenson

The outdoor event safety & planning checklist

Where should you start with understanding safety requirements for an upcoming event? At the top of our event safety checklist is understanding your event’s safety requirements. You must first check the overall UK requirements via Health and Safety Executive and review your local authority requirements. It is important to ensure you have checked the correct council depending on the postcode of your outdoor event. For example, Lancashire County Council has a dedicated section with general and specific guidance. It includes checklists, risk assessments, and contact information for the health and safety department.

The next priority would be categorising your event. This will require collating the scale and assessing the different types of people and vehicles who will attend or need access. These variables will hugely affect the safety risks. A small daytime family event of fewer than 300 people, in summertime, less than 5 hours in duration, on flat, open and non-listed ground, within an acre of land or less, with no rivers or large bodies of water within a close parameter, no temporary parking or specialist requirements would be considered low risk. However, this doesn’t mean that ground protection would not be required, as the ground type needs to be considered. Let’s look closer at this.

Winter festival ground protection safety

Understanding ground stability & protection

We frequently reiterate that when you are holding an event, the first supplier or equipment to enter the site (and the last to leave!) should always be your event ground protection.

If you believe you have a low-risk event and site, you may assess, co-ordinate and install standard HDPE ground protection yourself. Providing you use the local council and government legislation and have some experience in ground protection, this can be okay. However, we feel it is always best to gain a second opinion from a professional who has access to specialist equipment.

In most circumstances, a third-party professional is called upon to provide an in-depth risk assessment and create a ground protection plan. This is particularly relevant where aluminium trackway panels are required, as they can require specialist machine-operated fitting. Ground protection specialists (like us!) also use accessories, components and underlay to create safer and more effective trackway solutions.

Here you can see various examples of effective trackway solutions we have provided across varied sectors and ground types.

Walking outdoors on ground protection

Coping with emergencies should they arise

Although our event safety checklist is focused on preparation and prevention, you also have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. The likelihood of emergencies at outdoor events depends on many variables. This could the time of the event (day or night) as well as the time of the year, the style of the event i.e. music festival or classic car show, whether or not it is licensed for alcohol and the type of attendees i.e. families or 18-30-year-olds.

According to Catapult Services, a UK independent training and medical services organisation, the most common minor and potentially serious emergencies at outdoor events are:

Common spring/summer time, heat stroke, fainting and dehydration can be prevented by offering shade and shelter across the site. It is also important to provide easy access to water. Creating safety email marketing campaigns before the event to advise attendees to bring suncream and wear appropriate clothing is helpful. Additional safety signage on site to re-iterate this on the day of the event is also preventative. For a medium to larger-scale event, a medical tent will be required. These structures require appropriate ground support, which will need to be incorporated into your setup.

Cardiac emergencies

Despite an unlikelier occurrence, preparation for a high-risk emergency like this is crucial. To prepare, a medical tent is always necessary. Automated external defibrillators should be accessible, first aid trained staff, strong mobile reception to contact emergency services and last but certainly not least a temporary access road for emergency service access.

Allergic reactions

Similarly to the above, medium to severe allergies require fast action. A medical tent with first aid trained staff, EPI pens should be readily available and a temporary trackway road for emergency access. For prevention, food vendors should make all allergy information clear on menus and where the event is ticketed a health questionnaire for the attendees to gain allergy information can be utilised. According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2023 “In the UK, insect stings are the second most common cause of anaphylaxis outside of medical settings…and insect bites tend to be seasonal and increase during the summer months when more insects are active and more skin is exposed.”

Trauma and injuries

Unexpected sprains, fractures and breaks can commonly occur with large crowds, especially where events are licenced for alcohol. Stable and clear access routes, using trackway, should be available across site for wheelchair or stretcher access regardless, so when an attendee is rendered immobile these can be utilized to safely bring them to the medical tent for assessment. Ground protection helps to prevent slips and trips by creating a firm grip for footwear, levelling uneven ground or rocky terrain and creating a barrier against slippery mud. According to HSE, “slip and trip accidents increase during the Autumn and Winter season for a number of reasons: there is less daylight, leaves fall onto paths and become wet and slippery and cold weather spells cause ice and snow to build up on the ground”.

Respiratory distress

This is more of a risk for those with pre-existing conditions. Medical tents should be easily visible and accessible via an appropriate temporary trackway path. Standard medical tent supplies generally include breathing apparatus for ventilation and oxygenation. Very hot or very cold weather can exasperate respiratory conditions, and trained professionals should be vigilant in these circumstances. Always arrange some form of medical tent to suit the scale and nature of your event. Even if just a first aid box, at the entrance stall, for a car boot sale, marked with a flag, it is vital on an event safety checklist.

Intoxication and substance abuse

Where an event is licensed for alcohol, health and safety preventions and procedures become a little more stringent. Unfortunately, alcohol consumption often comes with a whole host of potential problems including illegal drug use. Event organisers need to ensure there is not only a medical tent and procedure but also a security tent and procedure. There needs to be a wide and secure temporary access road creating access to tents, and facilities as well as on and off-site. Searches upon entrance, responsible drinking and zero-tolerance drug signage should be visible across the site. Security and medical staff should be accessible around the site and trained to recognise the initial signs of problematic behaviour. Calmer areas and some seated areas should be offered as well as easily accessible water.

Do you have the correct facilities in place?

As a part of our event safety checklist, it is important to look at your plans and facilities. They must meet national standards and local authority standards. It is important to ensure you have the following emergency procedures for:

  1. Raising the alarm and informing the public
  2. Onsite emergency response, ie use of fire extinguishers
  3. Summoning the emergency services and continuing to liaise with them
  4. Crowd management, including evacuation, where necessary
  5. Evacuation of people with disabilities
  6. Traffic management, including emergency vehicles
  7. Incident control
  8. Providing first aid and medical assistance
  9. Counter-terrorism

And, for everything except smaller low-risk outdoor events, the police, fire and rescue service, ambulance service, emergency planning (and for fixed premises like stadiums and arenas, the venue management) all need to be informed of your emergency procedures.

Ground protection for outdoor event safety

Are you assessing risk accurately?

There are some common ways for risk assessments to become inaccurate and for safety procedures to fail.

Policies and procedures can change, so it is important to keep up to date so you can ensure you are following them correctly.

Quantities and ratios are important too i.e. making sure you have the correct amount of first aiders on site. St Johns Ambulance recommends 2 first aiders per 1000 people. This is something which can trip event holders up when the event is unticketed or pay upon entry, where the amount of walk-ins is underestimated.

A helpful tool to use is this Event First Aid Calculator* which works with the HSE on how many medical staff are required under the HSE purple guide to have on-site at your event. *Please note we do not advise to solely rely on this and you should always have a professional opinion.

Trackway is also something which event organisers can misjudge. See below to see how we can help.

Event safety with Davis Track Hire

Trackway is helpful in so many ways and is consistent throughout our event safety checklist. Not only does it provide safe access, it creates ground stability across site and reduces slips and falls. It also creates clearly defined routes to and from entrances, exisits, and onsite facilities including security and medical tents. Machinery, equipment, vehicles, people and wheelchairs can all benefit from ground protection mats.

Our friendly and knowledgeable hire desk team are your first point of contact. They will run through an in-depth survey to assess your trackway needs. One of our project engineers will then book in with you to physically attend the site. Here a further risk assessment can be carried out and your full ground protection solution provided.

Our event safety experience

We have successfully installed intricate trackway setups for large-scale events, productions, festivals and much more. We also regularly respond to emergency callouts which require working under intense pressure and often poor weather conditions.

Our engineers follow RAMS safety and work extremely hard to gain new and maintain current safety accreditations. As of December 2024, we have been officially labelled Scotland’s Top Road Safety Operator.

Event safety questions we’re often asked

If you are running an event in a public space or on land owned by the local council, you will need to map out safety requirments before applying to use the space, in order to gain permission.

As for events on private or hired land, the timeline for this will be at the disgression of the land owner and in line with their insurances.

As a rule of thumb, as soon as your event is categorised and you can collate the scale, attendee demographic and needs, you should begin planning safety requiements

We hope you can utilise our event safety checklist! Contact us, to learn more about how our team can help fulfil your trackway requirements.

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