LAWS AND REGULATIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH
The Importance of Concensus Standards & Guidance
Filling a Gap
Laws and regulations set forth minimum requirements one must meet to conduct an activity legally. In other words, compliance with applicable laws means that you will not get fined or charged with a crime. These are good things.
But few aspects of event production and operations are addressed by laws or regulations. This could be because few legislators are subject matter experts in event safety, or there is little political will or interest to dive into this largely unregulated field, or any number of other possible reasons. As it is, legislatively created minimum requirements have little to say about how to create safe events.
Instead, voluntary consensus standards created by industry professionals for use by our present and future colleagues are needed to help protect the safety, security, and health of people involved in live events. The Event Safety Alliance is actively engaged in creating both consensus standards and broad industry guidance regarding the myriad issues that can arise during event production and operations.
ESA Vice President Steven Adelman
CONSENSUS STANDARDS
In 2016, ESA created the Event Safety Working Group in conjunction with the Event Services and Technology Association (“ESTA”) for the purpose of creating peer-reviewed consensus standards regarding key issues in event production and operations. Creating an industry standard is a laborious and time-consuming process of organizing task groups of practitioners and subject matter experts, drafting a proposed standard, then addressing comments and edits in as many rounds of public review as it takes to gain final approval by the ESTA Technical Standards Program, which is the only ANSI-accredited standards program dedicated to the entertainment industry.
The Event Safety Alliance has led the creation of the following American National Standards, with more on the way:
INDUSTRY GUIDANCE
Many safety issues are either too multi-faceted to fit within a single standard, or too narrow to require a standard unto themselves. For these issues, the Event Safety Alliance creates industry treatises to provide context and perspective.
Thanks to its international membership and allies in all aspects of event production and operation, ESA is able to mobilize experienced professionals to serve as drafters, fact-checkers, and editors.
In 2014, ESA published its first major work, the Event Safety Guide. This was a direct response to the August 13, 2011 Indiana State Fair stage roof collapse that killed seven people and injured many more. The Event Safety Guide is in use around the world and has been translated into several foreign languages. In 2023, we have begun work on a Second Edition. Please enter your information here to contribute to that important work.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, ESA was one of the first organizations to release evidence-based information for event professionals, the Event Safety Alliance Reopening Guide. This collaborative effort by more than 300 people went through two subsequent updates and was also translated into multiple languages for use around the world.
GUIDANCE
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The Event Safety Guide addresses many of the common safety concerns found at most live events; including emergency planning, crowd management, weather preparedness, communication, and venue and site design, as well as event-specific issues such as pyrotechnics, rigging, and temporary staging. In thirty-nine chapters, The Event Safety Guide compiles information from treatises within and outside the United States, then distills that massive quantity of challenging material into a single volume of reasonable practices for people working in the live event industry.
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The Event Safety Alliance Reopening Guide is a free downloadable resource that addresses health and sanitary issues that event and venue professionals need to consider in order to protect both patrons and workers from the impacts of COVID-19 and similar pathogens. Beyond emphasizing the importance of following authoritative scientific advice from organizations such as the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, the Reopening Guide offers suggestions and alternative practices for consideration rather than claiming that any one practice is better than all others. The Event Safety Alliance Reopening Guide is the product of contributions from more than 300 professionals from all facets of the live event industry, from the smallest to largest producers and the many businesses that work to support them.
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List of additional guidance can be found on the resources page
STANDARDS
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This standard applies to fire safety in the live event industry. Fire safety is the identification and assessment of event-specific fire risks, and the effects that fire and smoke will have to the life safety of all persons who may be affected. It includes those measures required to minimize the likelihood of a fire starting, means of escape (egress), fire safety monitoring, and the methods used to limit the development, spread, and effects of fire. This standard does not address (a) requirements related to certifying fire fighters and their associated training; (b) requirements related to the construction of firefighting equipment; (c) requirements related to the construction, use, and maintenance of motorized fire fighting apparatus; (d) technical requirements of any equipment used for communications, illumination, signs or other hardware; or (e) installation of fixed fire alarm and suppression systems.
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This standard provides minimum requirements and general guidelines to assist an event organizer or producer regarding the suspension of equipment and materials that are used in the technical production of organized events. It addresses the general requirements for design, planning, installation, set-up, removal, and operation of rigging activities. These activities may be conducted either indoors or outdoors, on structures either temporary or permanent in nature. It does not address permanent rigging systems, nor rigging of people, of performer flying systems, or of the methods and construction of flying scenic elements.
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This standard is an update of the 2018 version, correcting errata, and expanding on existing requirements. It covers any temporary structure used for special events ("temporary special event structures"), where such structures are used for presentation, performance, structural support of entertainment technology equipment, audience seating or viewing in conjunction with the event, and regardless if the event is indoor or outdoor. The scope of this standard covers any such structure not otherwise addressed by existing standards, codes or legislation, and to the extent that such other standards, codes or legislation do not already address conditional use of those temporary structures within existing structures.
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The scope of this standard covers the consideration, development and use of event planning strategies that mitigate weather-related risks associated with live events, and with their associated temporary special event structures. Its scope includes both indoor and outdoor events, because each have considerations for the event participants. Its scope includes only public-access events, and private events where jurisdictional permits are required.
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The scope of this standard is to define "crowd management" as distinguished from "crowd control", to provide an overview of crowd management theory and vocabulary, and to apply these terms to certain reasonably foreseeable risks that arise during live events. The standard is intended both to identify minimum requirements and provide questions and suggestions that help event organizers make reasonable choices under the circumstances of their event.
Event Safety Working Group
The Event Safety Working Group (ESWG) is a collaborative entity operating under the umbrella of ESTA's Technical Standards Program. Members of the ESWG dedicate their time, expertise, and experience to develop American National Standards that specifically focus on safety within the live event industry. Membership in the Event Safety Working Group is open to any individual or organization with a significant interest in the subjects addressed by the group, as well as relevant knowledge in those areas.
