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The definitive collection of event safety knowledge
ESA guidance and standards are collaboratively developed with the world's foremost safety experts, event professionals, academics, and government officials. Our work is optimized for real-world application and undergoes regular updates to ensure its continued relevance. This process is driven by the principle that everyone should have access to safe outcomes and the opportunity to participate in live events without concern for their safety.
Learn More: The Importance of Standards and Guidance
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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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.
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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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This document establishes a minimum level of design and performance parameters for the design, manufacturing, use and maintenance of temporary ground-supported structures used in the production of outdoor entertainment events. The purpose of this guidance is to ensure the structural reliability and safety of these structures and does not address fire safety and safe egress issues. The intent of this standard is to establish a reasonable standard for care by providing the minimum acceptable requirements at which temporary structures shall be designed and used.
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The purpose of this standard is to help reduce the risk of harm to people and their property while they attend music, sports, cultural, corporate, and other events and mass gatherings. This standard is expressly intended to be a companion piece to ANSI ES1.9‐2020, Crowd Management, in that event security is an essential component of crowd management, and some of the reasonably foreseeable risks and risk mitigation strategies will overlap. It distinguishes between privately retained or volunteer security providers, and public safety officials such as police, sheriffs, constables, or firefighters who perform crowd control.
Additional ANSI standards can downloaded free of charge from the ESTA Technical Standards Program website.
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. For further details and application information, please visit https://tsp.esta.org/tsp/working_groups/index.html.
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