If you’re in charge of organising an event, whether a large public concert or a small-scale conference, a comprehensive risk assessment will be one of the most important elements in your planning process.
Regardless of the size of your event, a risk assessment is always prudent practice, and today, in most instances, undertaking a full risk assessment beforehand is a mandatory legal requirement. Your first priority must always be guaranteeing the safety of everyone on-site. This includes invited guests and members of the public, employees contracted to staff your event, and any outside contractors hired to set up and coordinate an event.
In the unfortunate event of an accident or injury at such an event, the repercussions can be far-reaching. Aside from prosecution and financial penalties, the reputational damage suffered in such circumstances can have a long-term adverse effect, and you or your businesses may find it impossible to hire venues or secure insurance for future events.
Event planners and organisers can use our Event Risk Assessment Template to pinpoint potential hazards and put in place the correct preventative measures. You can download our free Event Risk Assessment Template below to do the same. It includes sections for evaluating the following details:
- Identifying site hazards
- Describing identified site hazards
- Identified individuals at potential risk for each hazard
- Likelihood of hazard occurring and severity of possible outcomes
- Preventative measures implemented to mitigate each risk.
Download Our FREE Event Risk Assessment Template
When Is A Risk Assessment Needed For Events?
The simple answer is that in nearly all instances, you will need to conduct a risk assessment for almost every scale of event. If you have staff and contractors working at an event, then you are legally obliged to make an assessment of the health and safety risks under Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
Furthermore, to insure your event, insurers will insist that you complete a risk assessment as a basic requirement of the policy. Importantly, this applies even when the venue where you may be organising an event already has its own health and safety and insurance policy in place.
Risk Assessments for events broadly cover the same areas of potential concern to safeguard attendees, staff, and contractors. However, to understand what you will be expected to legislate for within your risk assessment, you will need to contact the local district council where your event is being held for full clarification of what you will be expected to do to provide the requisite health and safety measures.
The health and safety measures needed will be relative to the size of the event. All local authorities, such as district and city councils, will have set criteria for events of different sizes, but councils differ in how they define the scale of events. For example, some local authorities class an event expected to gather over a thousand people as large. For others, a large event can constitute just a few hundred attendees.
Related Reading: What Health And Safety Legislation Should All Employers Know About?
Who Is Responsible For An Event Risk Assessment?
A risk assessment is the process of identifying potential hazards, followed by recommendations for the application of practical control measures to either eliminate or minimise those risks so far as is reasonable or practically possible.
It is your duty as the event organiser to ensure a risk assessment is conducted before hosting an event, and it should comply with the requirements for health and safety set out by the local authority in charge of the area where your event will be hosted.
You can find information on the general expectations and legal obligations required by authorities when it comes to managing events by reading the HSE’s guide to managing event safety.
Anyone can complete a risk assessment as long as they are competent. This means the individual tasked must have the requisite knowledge and understanding of the undertaking or event that’s going to be assessed, as well as previous training and experience in completing risk assessments.
It is the event organiser’s responsibility to make certain a thorough and adequate assessment of event risks is conducted to identify potential harm to individuals, identify hazards that may pose a threat, evaluate the associated risks, and determine then implement effective control measures.
To ensure risk assessments are conducted thoroughly, many businesses and individuals demonstrate their further commitment to health and safety regulation compliance by gaining CHAS accreditation.
Free Risk Assessment Template
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How To Complete An Event Risk Assessment
An event risk assessment template is a valuable tool for taking the important first steps to identifying risks and hazards and collating that information to create a health and safety action plan for your event.
As an event organiser, your risk assessment should demonstrate that several key aspects have been evaluated.
First, there should be proof that a comprehensive risk assessment has taken place. Subsequently, you should be able to provide evidence that a thorough examination of the venue has been conducted, that the safety and well-being of all individuals that will visit the site, in every capacity, has been considered, that significant risks were evaluated, and adequate precautions have been put in place to minimise residual risk.
Whoever has been tasked with conducting your risk assessment should use a tool like the Event Risk Assessment Template above. While assessing the venue, the first step is always to identify the hazards associated with the location, activities, and equipment involved in your event.
Related Reading: An Introduction to Risk Assessments
Broadly speaking, these can be divided into the main risk categories outlined below:
- Fire hazards
- Slips, trips, and falls
- Electrical hazards
- Adequate lighting, heating, or ventilation
- Access and egress (including vehicle movement, crowd density and pinch points)
- Security
- Working at height
- Working with machinery
- Working with substances hazardous to health (e.g. chemicals).
Bear in mind this list is not exhaustive and only highlights the most common and general concerns, after which you should always consider the risks that may arise specific to your particular event. It could be, for example, extremely high noise levels, or if your event is being held outdoors, you will have to consider how adverse weather will impact risk during your event.
For each hazard you identify, you will next need to think about exactly who will be at risk. Again, these fall into two broad categories: the public and staff. In each instance, decide who will be at particular risk.
For example, in the case of the attending public, it may be that children, the elderly and those with disabilities may be at greater risk in certain circumstances. In the case of staff, which could encompass employees, contractors, vendors, volunteers, or performers, you must decide which groups will be most vulnerable to particular risks you have identified. Potential forms of injury most commonly include:
- Burns
- Bruising
- Cuts, grazes, and lacerations
- Breaks and fractures
- Electrocution
- Head injuries.
You will then need to evaluate each risk to decide whether enough has been done to control and reduce the risk of injury ‘as much as reasonably practicable’. The most basic mandatory methods for controlling risk at large events include the following:
- Provision of sufficient firefighting equipment
- Provision of sufficient first aid supplies and equipment
- Provision and use of personal protective equipment (PPE)
- Provision of site-specific training and instruction on safe working procedures for all relevant staff
- Provision of sufficient security personnel and stewards
- Provision of sufficient safe access and egress routes for staff and attendees
- Properly securing hazardous areas and limiting access to only those with authorisation
- Ensure all equipment being used has been inspected and tested to meet safety standards.
Once again, there may be other factors to consider that are particular to your event. Or maybe, due to its scale and nature, some of them won’t apply at all.
Nevertheless, taking all the factors above into consideration while thoroughly completing the Event Risk Assessment Template provided will ensure that when it comes to implementing the right levels of health and safety measures for your event, your organisers will be off to a solid start.
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