Risk Management Tips for Event Professionals

Risk management is a critical part of the event planning process. Although risks may be seen to have little significance, they could be disastrous for your events and damage clients’ experiences if they occur and could not be mitigated properly. Serving alcohol and crowd management are very common risk parts which event planners might often face. It is important for event managers to develop and implement a detailed risk management plan that reduces harm and effects associated with factors such as the consumption of alcohol and crowd management.

Below are several risk management tips that you can take into consideration for these areas.

Ineffective management of alcohol can contribute to overdrinking which might risk event goers, staff and public safety. How can you keep attendees happy while also minimizing the risk in serving alcohol at your event?

• Placing a limit on serving alcohol can be the easiest way to minimize the risk of overconsumption in which each guest is permitted a maximum of 2 to 3 drinks at the event. By providing drink tickets or band whistles, you can track the quantity of drinks being served.
• Hire well-trained bartenders who can identify and manage guests that may be nearing over-consumption and assist in a professional manner to limit additional drink requests from that guest, while also ensuring they do not feel embarrassed in front of their colleagues. Another way to minimize the risk is to stop serving alcohol at least one hour before closing and offer alternative non-alcoholic drinks and complimentary water to make sure guests have time to cool down and sober before leaving the event and get to their home safely. 

Another risk that could be highlighted as a serious one is if accidents happen due to lack of space and compression asphyxia in outdoor events. The lack of space to circulate can generate accidents, congestion, and general discomfort in the participants. Although a risk management plan should be created to manage the crowd as part of the event plans, sometimes event planners still can not control the risks that might happen when dealing with unpredictable crowd behavior, for example participants who use drugs or volunteers and/or security officers who may not be trained enough to assist in movement of the people or in emergency situations. Event planners should have a detailed plan in which a map of a venue should be shared with attendees, security officers should be hired and trained for such circumstances and many groups of volunteers should be placed to assist in the proper movement of people. Paramedic services should be ready and on stand-for emergency incidents to make sure all attendees are safe and protected. 

As part of any successful event planning process, risks should be identified and controlled to minimize the potential damages for property or injury for people. An effective risk management plan can help event planners not only to decrease costs such as insurance, legal fees, but also protect reputation and brand images for organization or individual.

About the Author:

Le Nguyen
Event Management Student
Humber College