31 replies to this topic

[jamsam]

After what happened at Love Parade in Germany, i think we are all grateful for H&S, policing and security.

As a festival organiser i can agree on the huge stress that goes along with trying to get your event passed and certified but aslong as you are open and honest, explaining any problems and asking for help when you need it, H&S doesnt need to be scarey. Small festivals often come and go in different forms with different names untill they are established enough to stay and hold thier crowd but whats really interesting is the rise of private parties that charge you membership but give free tickets...i like the way organisers have looked for a loophole and are willing to use the loops to have a good time, but are they safe enough??

anyway, punters tickets ofr me all year this year !! ive really missed having a radio or being woken up at 5am by a policeman....hmmmm

[Rufus Gwertigan]

jamsam, on 05 August 2010 - 10:30 PM, said:

After what happened at Love Parade in Germany, i think we are all grateful for H&S, policing and security.

As a festival organiser i can agree on the huge stress that goes along with trying to get your event passed and certified but aslong as you are open and honest, explaining any problems and asking for help when you need it, H&S doesnt need to be scarey. Small festivals often come and go in different forms with different names untill they are established enough to stay and hold thier crowd but whats really interesting is the rise of private parties that charge you membership but give free tickets...i like the way organisers have looked for a loophole and are willing to use the loops to have a good time, but are they safe enough??

anyway, punters tickets ofr me all year this year !! ive really missed having a radio or being woken up at 5am by a policeman....hmmmm

I will always back H&S. In my view if the regs stop ONE person being injured/killed that is worth it in my book. What people do not realise is that H&S in this country is reactive. i.e. someone has been hurt in the past. (mainly. I know some isn't but it is based on reactive studies)

[elli]

Can anyone tell me at what point a gathering of friends and music in a field becomes a small festival and needs to go though the hoops of H & S, police etc? Is it determined by the number of people on site?

[Rufus Gwertigan]

elli, on 07 August 2010 - 07:04 AM, said:

Can anyone tell me at what point a gathering of friends and music in a field becomes a small festival and needs to go though the hoops of H & S, police etc? Is it determined by the number of people on site?

Essentially yes it is numbers. A temporary licence is less than 500 and for over that you need the full Macoy.

[eFestivals]

Rufus Gwertigan, on 07 August 2010 - 04:01 AM, said:

What people do not realise is that H&S in this country is reactive. i.e. someone has been hurt in the past. (mainly. I know some isn't but it is based on reactive studies)

While that's the origins of H&S, it stopped being that a long time ago. Once all of the "it's happened in the past, we need to stop it happening again" things had been addressed, the very preservation of H&S staff at the level they'd grown to required them to start to find new things, sometimes verging on the ridiculous.

For example: there was one year at GuilFest where its licence stipulated that to buy alcohol from the bar each over-18 person had to be wristbanded at the entrance gate - no wristband, no sale.

Now, while someone aged (say) 22 might look possibly under-18, a 50 year old person never looks under-18 - so why do they need to be wristbanded?

And ultimately, anyone under-18 who might have been challenged about their age would have brought ID anyway - so they'd have used that to get wristbanded and so they'd have been no change in who got served.

Yet doing this stupid idea got H&S to justify their existence for another year.

[Rich BT]

eFestivals, on 09 August 2010 - 10:34 AM, said:

While that's the origins of H&S, it stopped being that a long time ago. Once all of the "it's happened in the past, we need to stop it happening again" things had been addressed, the very preservation of H&S staff at the level they'd grown to required them to start to find new things, sometimes verging on the ridiculous.

For example: there was one year at GuilFest where its licence stipulated that to buy alcohol from the bar each over-18 person had to be wristbanded at the entrance gate - no wristband, no sale.

Now, while someone aged (say) 22 might look possibly under-18, a 50 year old person never looks under-18 - so why do they need to be wristbanded?

And ultimately, anyone under-18 who might have been challenged about their age would have brought ID anyway - so they'd have used that to get wristbanded and so they'd have been no change in who got served.

Yet doing this stupid idea got H&S to justify their existence for another year.

Thats quite amusing as the h+s folks where we are told us not to do it as it bad practice - we had no intention of doing it anyway. They said it makes the bar staff complacent.

[eFestivals]

Rich BT, on 10 August 2010 - 07:49 AM, said:

Thats quite amusing as the h+s folks where we are told us not to do it as it bad practice - we had no intention of doing it anyway. They said it makes the bar staff complacent.

I'd guess from that that it was something they'd implemented in the past or been told was 'good practice' in the past, and then got to double up their work by making it 'bad practice' a year or three later, thus further justifying their existence.

I'm not anti H&S .... there's lots of things that have been changed for the better via what they do. But it's not the case that those original 'need to be changed' things remain their focus; those have been sorted, and everyone now knows what is best practice and in the main there's nothing for H&S to do around those things now aside from quick checks that they've actually been done. So they're having to invent new things out of nothing to justify their continued existence and importance.

[Rich BT]

I am not anti health and safety either and half of what we do and most other festivals is above best practice. The Purple Guide is actually relevant and quite practical however the issue we find is that certain council individuals make up their own rules away from HSE guidance. Its hard to budget costs and manage health and safety practice when you have some council h+s worker making up the rules as they go along and they are given the power to enforce what they want. If everything was the same accross the board then the organisers life would be much easier and avoid conflicting information from various agencies which in my view creates h+S risks. We got to the point of not knowing which to listen to but sided with caution and listened to the local council chap as he had the most power over our license.

I spoke to our new h+s chap for the new district we are hopefully locating to yesterday and half of what we had implemented this year he does not want to see it - how can that be right?

Edited by Rich BT, 10 August 2010 - 08:43 AM.

[rabid]

Rich BT, on 10 August 2010 - 08:41 AM, said:

I am not anti health and safety either and half of what we do and most other festivals is above best practice. The Purple Guide is actually relevant and quite practical however the issue we find is that certain council individuals make up their own rules away from HSE guidance. Its hard to budget costs and manage health and safety practice when you have some council h+s worker making up the rules as they go along and they are given the power to enforce what they want. If everything was the same accross the board then the organisers life would be much easier and avoid conflicting information from various agencies which in my view creates h+S risks. We got to the point of not knowing which to listen to but sided with caution and listened to the local council chap as he had the most power over our license.

I spoke to our new h+s chap for the new district we are hopefully locating to yesterday and half of what we had implemented this year he does not want to see it - how can that be right?

Surely there's some come-back on that. Fair enough it probably wouldn't be in your interest to complain but there must be some way of making sure these little Hitlers (there, I said it) are kept in check.

[eFestivals]

rabid, on 10 August 2010 - 08:50 AM, said:

Surely there's some come-back on that. Fair enough it probably wouldn't be in your interest to complain but there must be some way of making sure these little Hitlers (there, I said it) are kept in check.

There is - but from what I get to hear of, it's something that has to be done with care.

Festie organisers are able to challenge things, but they have to present good reasons (often including how things are done elsewhere without there being problems), and they have to approach the regulators in such a way that it doesn't piss them off - the very last thing any organiser needs is those types thinking that the organiser has scant regard for safety and regulation as it undermines their confidence that they'll do all that is necessary. Undermining that confidence can result in extra things being pushed their way, a greater attention to detail when they check what's been done (and they can normally find something wrong if they look hard enough no matter how conciousness the organiser), and at the extreme end of things could result in the licence being revoked (which is essentially my take on what happened with the Big Green Gathering a couple of years ago - the regulators lost all confidence in them).

[Flaminglippy]

eFestivals, on 09 August 2010 - 10:34 AM, said:

Now, while someone aged (say) 22 might look possibly under-18, a 50 year old person never looks under-18 - so why do they need to be wristbanded?

And ultimately, anyone under-18 who might have been challenged about their age would have brought ID anyway - so they'd have used that to get wristbanded and so they'd have been no change in who got served.

Yet doing this stupid idea got H&S to justify their existence for another year.

I got ID'd at the Isle of Wight this year and the nugget serving refused to serve me because I didn't have my passport (I don't think taking my passport to a festival is a great idea and as I don't drive its only photo ID I have). He used the excuse that there were random checks being done...utterly ridiculous...the people in the queue around me told him to stop being such a plank...

I'm 38!!!

[rabid]

eFestivals, on 10 August 2010 - 10:46 AM, said:

There is - but from what I get to hear of, it's something that has to be done with care.

Festie organisers are able to challenge things, but they have to present good reasons (often including how things are done elsewhere without there being problems), and they have to approach the regulators in such a way that it doesn't piss them off - the very last thing any organiser needs is those types thinking that the organiser has scant regard for safety and regulation as it undermines their confidence that they'll do all that is necessary. Undermining that confidence can result in extra things being pushed their way, a greater attention to detail when they check what's been done (and they can normally find something wrong if they look hard enough no matter how conciousness the organiser), and at the extreme end of things could result in the licence being revoked (which is essentially my take on what happened with the Big Green Gathering a couple of years ago - the regulators lost all confidence in them).

Figured which is why I said 'probably not in your interest'.

Flaminglippy, on 10 August 2010 - 11:44 AM, said:

I got ID'd at the Isle of Wight this year and the nugget serving refused to serve me because I didn't have my passport (I don't think taking my passport to a festival is a great idea and as I don't drive its only photo ID I have). He used the excuse that there were random checks being done...utterly ridiculous...the people in the queue around me told him to stop being such a plank...

I'm 38!!!

Fecking idiot. You could have taken it as a compliment of course.