Hope is Not a Plan: Legal Clarity for Event Professionals

 

Contracts. Risk. Responsibility.

Whether you’re planning galas or global conferences, understanding your legal obligations is essential. Join us for two eye-opening sessions designed specifically for event professionals:

Session 1: Contracts, Deconstructed and Demystified

We use contracts all the time, yet many of the provisions are incomprehensible to non-lawyers (and some lawyers too!).  We will explore the scary boilerplate no one reads, but which will determine your rights and remedies if things go wrong.  Cancellation and indemnification and force majeure, oh my!

Session 2: Reasonableness: A Love Story

A foundational principle of common law is that everyone has a legal duty to behave as a reasonable person under their own circumstances.  In English, that means our legal obligations are constantly changing.  Weather preparedness is different in a time of severe storms; security now means having more than checking a guest list.  This session will consider foreseeable scenarios and what a reasonable professional should do to mitigate the resulting risks, because hope is not a plan.

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Meet Our Speaker

Steven A. Adelman
Adelman Law Group, PLLC
Vice President, Event Safety Alliance

Steven A. Adelman is the head of Adelman Law Group, PLLC and Vice President of the Event Safety Alliance.  He creates safety plans, provides crowd manager training, and serves as an event safety standard of care expert in significant lawsuits, including the cases arising from the 2011 Indiana State Fair stage roof collapse, the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting in Las Vegas, and the 2021 Astroworld festival crowd crush.  Mr. Adelman led the task groups that created American National Standards for three related aspects of event safety: ANSI ES 1.9-2020, Crowd Management; ANSI ES 1.40-2023, Event Security; and ANSI ES 1.42-2025, Parade Safety.

 

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08:30 AM - 09:00 AM | Registration: Coffee & Conversation
09:00 AM - 09:15 AM | Welcome Remarks & Speaker Intro
09:15 AM - 10:15 AM | Session 1: Contracts, Deconstructed and Demystified 
10:15 AM - 10:30 AM | Session 1: Q&A
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM | Break & Venue Tour 
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM | Session 2: Reasonableness: A Love Story
12:00 PM - 12:15 PM | Session 2 Q&A
12:15 PM - 12:30 PM | Closing Remarks
12:30 PM - 01:30 PM | Networking Lunch

 

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Pricing:
Member: $80
Non-Member: $105
Past-President: $65
Student: $65

 

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Thank You to Our Event Sponsors

 

Mohegan Sun
1 Mohegan Sun Boulevard
Uncasville, CT 06382