August 2012 Communication in the Event Industry Hub Docume… · August 2012 Communication in the Event Industry ... This Occasional Paper is a discussion article, ... If we existed

Emergency Planning College

Occasional Papers New Series

Number August 2012

Communication in the Event Industry

Laurence Foster Associate Course Director

Emergency Planning College

2

Laurence Foster Emergency Planning College

Please Note:

This Occasional Paper is a discussion article, written and published in order to

stimulate debate and reflection on key themes of interest to the resilience

community. It is part of a series of papers published by the Emergency Planning

College on the Knowledge Centre of its website and available freely to practitioners

and researchers. The opinions and views it expresses are those of the author

alone. This paper does not constitute formal guidance or doctrine of any sort,

statutory or otherwise, and its contents are not to be regarded as the expression of

government policy or intent.

For further information, including a submissions guide for those who wish to submit a

paper for publication, please contact:

Mark Leigh Emergency Planning College T: 01347 825036 E: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Introduction

All disasters, the theorists would have you believe, are man‐made, a

claim which is usually challenged by those of a more pragmatic mind

who will cite tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes as ‘natural disasters’

Although the claim does seem rather extreme, it is probably more

accurate than would first appear. If a tsunami or a tornado struck a

desert island, would it impact on our lives? Would we hear about it?

Highly unlikely. Disasters are measured by the impact on the human

race or, in regard to the environment, the impact caused by the human

race.

But does that necessarily mean that all disasters are man‐made? When

an act of nature, such as a tornado, devastates a town in the United

States, is that a man‐made disaster? It can be debatable, but the answer

is invariably ‘yes’ when considered purely from an academic

perspective. The argument put forward is that we build communities

where they are at risk from flooding, high winds, erosion, forest fire, etc,

and we continue to do so even though there is evidence of past

disasters in the same location. Communities which have been destroyed

by acts of nature are often re‐built in virtually the same location, only to

be devastated at some time in the future.

Why does this occur (and re‐occur)? Authors such as Brian Toft, Barry

Turner and others suggest that we are quite poor at learning from the

past, that we can be complacent and blinkered. Essentially, we don’t

fully absorb the communication which tells us to do one thing and not the

other. Our actions are not objective, and the communication is


influenced by the interference brought by cultural, political, financial and

organisational factors.

So while disasters are man‐made, it is communication which is inevitably

a prime causal factor, and ‘Communication’ in this form of debate has at

least three dimensions:

Communication of an historical event

The following is developed from research into the history of disasters at

UK football stadia, which witnessed 43 disasters in 100 years. In

between the official reports (listed below) were smaller incidences,

possibly incubating factors, but these weren’t recognised for what they

were until a major disaster struck, provoking official enquiries and

recommendations for change. An example of this is the Ibrox Disaster of

1971. There had been 3 previous serious incidents on Stairway 13 at

Ibrox over the years, but it took the death of 66 people on the fourth

occasion to recognise that there was a problem and launch the

Wheatley enquiry (this is known as ‘Tombstone Legislation’).

However, with the benefit of 20‐20 hindsight we can see that highly

relevant issues discovered in all enquiries were not communicated or

simply not acted upon:

‘Recommendations from the Shortt Report (Wembley ‐ 1924) regarding

responsibility and stewarding had not been pursued, nor had the

suggestion from the Hughes Report (Bolton ‐ 1946) regarding the

‘packing’ of stadia and the calculation of maximum capacities. The

Hughes Report had been the first report to suggest stadium licensing,


which had been re‐emphasised by the Wheatley Report (1971 ‐ Ibrox)

some 26 years later, but the Hillsborough licence had not been re‐written

since 1984, regardless of the changes which had occurred to the

structure of the stadium during the preceding years. The perimeter

fences, suggested by the McElhorne Report (1977 – report into public

disorder) were present, but the evacuation gates requested by the

Popplewell Report (1985 – Birmingham & Bradford) were not. Although

there were gates in the fences, these were not intended to allow

evacuation on to the pitch. They had been designed to allow police

and medical access into the terraces. Both McElhorne and Popplewell

had recommended improvements in the turnstile facilities, to allow

speedier and safer access into the stadium, but this had not been

implemented.

The Taylor Report (1989 ‐ Hillsborough) can be seen to be an amalgam

of all the previous reports, as it re‐examines many of the issues which

had been recognised and reported on since 1924’.

(L. Foster – 2000)

If we existed in a perfect world where communication was received,

understood and acted upon, the Hillsborough disaster may not have

occurred. Unfortunately, we seem incapable to learn from the past; a

human trait which made Hillsborough almost inevitable.


Communication between individuals

With communication having this pivotal role between success and

failure, how do we, in the safety industry, ensure that we communicate

efficiently with the thousands of volunteer and part‐time stewards who

provide such sterling support to the fetes, festivals and sporting events

which take place throughout the year? This may seem at a bit of a

tangent from the theory spouted above, but consider it from this

perspective: In each and every briefing that takes place we are

endeavouring to avoid a Hillsborough Disaster, a Monsters of

Rock fatality, a Duisberg crowd crush.

In essence, a briefing is (or should be) the distillation of experience

drawn from our history of disaster. I am not suggesting that briefings

should contain terrible reminders of what occurred in the past, but the

essence of the briefing material must be based on the lessons we have

learned.

Surely, you may say, we do this, and in the main you would be right, but

we are slow to learn and quick to forget, and as new generations of

safety officers, stewards and security staff join the ranks, the

organisational memory begins to fade, complacency starts to grow and

the importance of clarity in briefings begins to dilute.

Consider the following exert from a briefing witnessed during an event in

2011. It was given to a large number of stewards, of differing ages and

experience, in the open air where road traffic, passing aircraft and lawn

mowers combined to drown out much of the message:


“I want B3 to work the bottom point until the start of phase 2. I want you

to remember that we had some crowd difficulties in that area last year,

so keep an eye out for that happening again. John, I want you to monitor

T1 as the FM has heard its defective; let me know how it goes on. Pete,

the RVP for medical response has moved because of the road‐works on

the main road. We have put it next to Jimmy’s. John, you are at your

usual spot, so give me a shout on 2 when you are in place. You might

need some back‐up later if last week is anything to go by, so keep in

touch”.

What does this mean? Place yourself in the role of a new steward at any

form of event and analyse the benefit of the information you are

receiving from such a briefing. It contains a significant number of

assumptions that those being briefed understand the abbreviations and

acronyms, that they realise there is more than one ‘John’ in the audience

and they know the location of ‘Jimmy’s’.

When briefings are carried out with such misplaced assertion, new

stewards find it difficult to declare that they do not fully understand the

message or their role in the operation. They remain silent, owing to the

newness of their surroundings and a possible lack of confidence, hoping

that they will learn what the terminology means by osmosis. However, as

the weeks progress, they are still unsure as to what the briefings mean,

but by now it is too late to ask, as they may be criticised for not asking

sooner. This creates what could be termed ‘concealed ignorance’, and

future briefings on any development in that venue will compound the

ignorance as it will be based on flawed information and assumptions. If

you add good material to bad material, you still have bad material; you


have to dig up the foundations to start again so that the assumptions

and misinformation are removed.

In addition to the briefings, there is also the complexity of geography,

incremental design and sponsorship which can fudge communication.

For example, consider the following:

North Stand

Main Stand

Newton Road Stand

John Smith Stand

On first glance they could signify the names of the four stands within any

typical stadium in the UK, but time, habit, incremental design and

business development have actually combined to give one stand four

different titles.

So, what the Safety Team refer to as the North Stand is known to older

stewards as the Main Stand, whilst local supporters know it as the

Newton Road Stand, and the marketing department know it as the

John Smith Stand. A recent example of this is when a venue re‐named

a stand to that of a new sponsor and sold tickets for that stand (under its

new name) without advertising the change to the public, the safety team,

the turnstile operators or the emergency services.


Such complacency, as outlined in the above section, can only contribute

to the communication errors which will obstruct a response to any

incident, be it from the steward who really doesn’t fully understand

his/her role at the venue, or the emergency services being directed to

the wrong location.

Technical Communications

The popular TV representation of a control room usually shows an

orderly, quiet affair, with one person relaying clear unambiguous

messages via the room’s one microphone, with a pot of tea and a plate

of digestive biscuits in the background. Those of us who spend our lives

in the real world know that the management of communication is a tad

more difficult, and sometimes question if the massive technical

developments in communication are more of a hindrance than a help.

Where once the technical elements of a control room consisted of one

telephone and one radio channel, we now have numerous phone lines, a

plethora of radio channels, CCTV, programmable signage, Public

Address systems, mobile phones, text messaging, emails, computerized

incident logs, computerized ‘flow rate’ indicators, etc, etc. However,

when you consider a multi‐agency, multi‐layered event, is there a

‘one‐size‐fits‐all’ communication system?

Hardly. Even with the development of ‘Airwave’ technology there is little

compatibility between the systems employed by the various agencies

that work at a public event, and the operation can run on a clashingly


haphazard system ranging from a locally devised form of sign‐language

to Bluetooth with a bit of VHF radio thrown in for good measure.

Going back to the original premise of this paper, that all disasters are

manmade and communication is at the core of all disasters, can we

allow these situations to continue, and if not, how do we ascertain best

practice? How do we establish which is the most efficient communication

method for event management?

One method is to complete a matrix over a selected period of time,

highlighting those systems which are used to communicate between the

different disciplines / agencies involved in spectator safety.


Starting on the left of the grid, the Safety Officer works left to right,

colour-coding how effective they have found the various methods of

communication; green for efficient, amber for less than efficient and red

for not efficient. The various disciplines down the left hand side do

likewise on separate grids, and when the results are brought together

the most efficient and least efficient methods of operational

communication are clearly identified.

A possibly over‐simplistic method? Yes, it could be seen to be, but to

dismiss the need for this type of assessment will leave us in the

ever‐growing morass of e‐communication. Beck (1992) suggests that no

institution is prepared for the ‘worst imaginable accident’, but that many

are specialised in denying the dangers by over‐reliance upon

technology. The ‘Dogma of Infallible Technology’ follows the line that ‘it

will never happen here because we have the biggest and the best

technology available’, a boast which doesn’t withstand much scrutiny

when compared with any technical failure from Titanic to the opening of

Heathrow’s Terminal 5.

Technical communication facilities are too important to be installed just

because they exist, just because they are the latest toy. We must avoid

the flash and brash equipment in our control rooms in favour of that

piece of kit which, although not cutting edge, meets the needs of the

venue, the event, the multi‐agency operation and, most importantly,

provides a high level of resilience in the management of public safety.


Conclusion

We have had a brief look at how communication (in its various guises)

plays a part in the causes of disaster, from failing to recognise its

historical significance to how we can confuse ourselves in our thirst for

‘slicker’ technology in the future. However, the most important aspect, to

my mind, is the middle ground, where we brief stewards, security,

medics and all those other essential people who contribute to public

safety in stadia, arena, theatres, green‐field sites, etc.

For all the technical improvements that have been witnessed at our

events over the years, a system is still only as strong as its weakest link.

This weak‐link could be a sub‐standard briefing, leaving a small number

of stewards unsure as to what they have to do in the initial stages of a

crisis. Do they open a gate, do they close a gate? Do they move left, or

right? “What does that coded message actually mean? I meant to ask

three weeks ago, but now I am too embarrassed to ask”. “What does E

position mean, and where is it?”

We must always recognise that assumption is one of our greatest

enemies when we carry out a briefing, and when there is no answer to

your concluding point ‘Any questions’, that there may actually be quite a

few going unasked. Complacency is another factor against providing an

efficient briefing, and this may contribute to the paradox which exists

when preparing a sharp and concise briefing; an efficient briefing

requires significant preparation time.

Documents

August 2012 Communication in the Event Industry Hub Docume… · August 2012 Communication in the Event Industry ... This Occasional Paper is a discussion article, ... If we existed