Safety for Live Events

Record attendance for last November's NewyBay Media-produced webinar on live event safety opened a lot of industry eyes on just how important a topic this is. So I thought it useful to interview the key player in that webinar and more importantly one of the key players in the live events industry for all things safety related.

Jim Digby is the Executive Director of the Event Safety Alliance, that he founded in 2011 (www.eventsafetyalliance.org). The scope of the Event Safety Alliance is the standardization of safety practices within the staging and live event industries. Digby drew on several decades of in-the-field

Jim Digby is a top stager, and the Executive Director of the Event Safety Alliance, that he founded in 2011. A long-time advocate for event safety and ethical touring models, he is a three-time recipient of Tourlink's Production Manager of the year award, as well as the Parnelli's Production Manager of the Year award for 2012.

experience as a top production manager Digby currently serves as Director of Touring and Production for the multi-million selling artists Linkin Park, and has previously worked with artists as diverse as The Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi, and Marilyn Manson as he's guided the production of the new ESA Event Safety Guide

I sat down with Jim to get an update on the ESA activities, and the ESA Event Safety Guide.

Keene:The evolution of the ESA Event Safety Guide has happened in response to a series of accidents within the live event industry, to formulate a series of best practices culled from the experience and insight of top professionals within the event industry, as well as relevant life safety standards currently applicable by groups such as OSHA, NFPA, ICC and PLASA. How are your initiatives related to what, say, PLASA is doing?

Digby: PLASA and the ESA publicly announced their mutual support for each other's efforts. PLASAs central focus is the creation of extremely necessary equipment technical standards and protocols. The ESA is central to the human side and smart decision making. By encapsulating and aiding in the proliferation of the work of PLASA, OSHA, NFPA, ICC and other standards writing bodies the Event Safety Guide consolidates the majority of the references necessary to make intelligent decisions in one document.

Keene: We hear more about safety issues for entertainment events live concerts, etc. But what about corporate events?

Entertainment events are usually tours ; corporate events are usually one-offs. How does this affect safety issues?

Digby: The best practices contained within the Event Safety Guide are scaleable regardless of venue or type of event. Additional specific guidance is in process to target theater, convention, circus and specialty event types. But generally, rigging is rigging and the safety best practices that guide it are generally applicable regardless of event type.

Keene: How similar will your version of the Safety Guide be to the British version or the purple guide?

Digby: The decision of our friends across the pond to allow us to utilize HSE 195 (the Purple Guide) as our framework has been crucial in expediting the process. One of our wisest decisions to date was to borrow directly from the UK version rather than attempt to build it from the ground up. This would have taken significantly longer to bring the guidance to life and in the interim the possibility for continued decline in operational protocol. We remain forever indebted to the HSE for granting us use of the Purple Guide.

Keene: Has there been any talk of online web training courses similar to the FEMA courses? And what about possible lectures, or quizzes?

Digby: The ESA is exploring ALL methodologies to extend the reach and result of the guidance, in short yes. We are currently constructing the first of its kind Summit for Safety Event Leadership Training that we intend to deliver by year's end 2014. Additionally, we will be test piloting a handful of new procedures within the framework of music tours which we will be documenting and making available to the membership body as training material. It bears commenting here that the leadership of the ESA are also training themselves with the help of other industries who have experienced similar best practice transitions. There is much to learn from the airline industry, surgeons, construction and yes even NASA. We will be engaging directly with the thought leaders in these spaces who have helped to develop the protocols now in place to ensure best practices are easy and applicable at every level and serve the purpose of preventing injury and catastrophe.

Keene: Is the ESA Scalable to help smaller or start-up vendors in the industry to ensure they are aligned?

Keene: When will the ESA Event Safety Guide be available?

Digby: We are currently at the mercy of the processes within iTunes, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Our hope is that it will be live electronically as this interview goes to print. When this happens it will also be available through the ESA website.

Keene: How do our readers order a copy of the book?

Digby: Visit eventsafetyalliance.org and follow the instructions on how to order.

Keene: Last November's webinar on live event safety was extremely well received by the industry. Will there be more webinars?

Digby: Absolutely. The date for the next Take 1/ESA webinar has been set for March 19, 2014. The Webinar will be entitled Ready for Summer? A 60-Minute primer on Producing Safer Outdoor Events .

The co-presenter at last November's Live Event Safety Webinar was Scott Carroll (shown at right), Executive Vice President & Program Director at Take1 Insurance. Carroll provided the insurance perspective and addressed not only the importance of having the right coverage but also the likely

pressures to be brought on live event producers to ha

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