Event Safety

If you’re asking this question, I’m going to guess that you have serious interest in running or promoting a festival. After 20 years in the events industry, we’ve had to deal with almost every type of legal requirement.

But what type of festival and what are the legal requirements? In this short post, we explain which legislation you need to know about when planning your event.

The legal requirements for festivals vary. It depends on the type and the activities taking place as well as the country. Broadly legal requirements will fit into the following categories:

Licensing Law
Food & Hygiene Law
Environmental Law
Health and Safety Law
Copyright Law

For best practise, you should carry out due diligence for the legal requirements in the country or state that your festival operates. If you are unsure, then seek professional help or guidance from an expert in one of those fields. The following pieces of legislation will apply to most festivals in the UK.

Licensing Law for Festivals

Licensing covers things like the sale of alcohol, public entertainment and late-night refreshment. All critical ingredients for most festivals so an important first consideration.

Within the UK, there are devolved government arrangements for Scotland and Northern Ireland licensing, so the requirements are slightly different to England and Wales.

England and Wales

In England and Wales, the primary piece of legislation is the Licensing Act 2003. There are two main components to this licencing law that you’ll need to understand before putting any festival on. The first component is a personal licence, and the second component is a premises licence.

As the name suggests, a personal licence is held by an individual. That licence stays with them.

To gain a personal licence, you must undertake the relevant qualification then apply for the personal licence via a Local Authority Licensing department. A disclosure of conviction must also be submitted. Find out more on the UK Government website here.

The current qualification requirements are a Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders. You can find more information on who provides these awards at the UK Government website here.

The venue you wish to host the festival in will require a license itself. This could either be a Premises License (which is semi-permanent) or a Temporary Event Notice.

A Premises Licence allows for licensable activities to take place at that venue. Licensable activities include the sale of alcohol and public entertainment, amongst other things.

A Temporary Event Notice has a slightly different application process and only applies to once event per time period.

See the UK government website here for more information on these.

Scotland

In Scotland, the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 applies and is very similar to the England and Wales version with Personal and Premises Licenses. There are some subtle differences in terms of the licensing objectives that you should make yourself familiar. See the Scottish Government website here for further advice.

Food Safety Law

Food Safety is a crucial area for any festival as having a poor standard of food hygiene can lead to complaints or worst sick customers. This will do your reputation damage as well, so it is worth knowing what is required.

A couple of important pieces of law apply here, The Food Safety Act 1990 and The Food Standards Act 1999 that established the Food Standards Agency.

As a festival organiser, you have a responsibility to ensure the safety of your staff and customers. This is also referred to as a duty of care. You must, therefore, check the paperwork of any food vendors you book to attend. Sadly this does not involve any food tasting…!

The simplest way to do this is to check they have up-to-date:

Food Hygiene Certificates for staff and a
Food Hygiene Rating for their business. They should also have
Public and Employers Liability Insurance,
Registered with a local authority (doesn’t have to be yours)
Gas safety check documents (if using gas)
Electrical safety documents (Such as PAT tests)
Allergen Information

Environmental Law

Depending on the country the festival operates in there will be different environmental laws. However, there is a growing demand from attendees that festivals act in a responsible way towards their sustainability, including things like waste management.

There are some specific standards, like the ISO 20121, which provides a complete planning system for sustainability at events. This includes considering sustainability at the planning, operational and evaluation phases. EventSustainability.com have a useful tool to help achieve ISO 20121.

In the UK, the Environmental Protection Act of 1990 encourages a duty of care on all businesses (that includes Festivals) to remove all waste. Remember, commercial waste is treated differently from the kind you dispose of domestically.

There are some great resources on A Greener Festival’s website to help understand how to improve sustainability at a festival including better waste management, traffic planning, noise, food and land damage.

Health and Safety Law

One of the most important pieces of legislation that you’ll need to adhere to is for health and safety. Sadly, history is littered with examples where poor judgement or poor implementation has led to the loss of life at large scale events.

The main piece of legislation is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which requires all festival operators to consider and manage the safety of their staff and visitors or customers coming to the event.

Another critical piece of legislation that you should be aware of is the Management of Health and Safety At Work Regulations 1999, which requires you to undertake risk assessments to assess the hazards at your festival.

The Noise at Work Regulations 2006 require you to undertake a risk assessment for any loud noise on your site. If you’re running a music festival, this is especially important, and you’ll need to understand what the requirements are to ensure the safety of staff, performers and customers.

There are some other pieces of legislation worth looking at, below is a list to start from (Links are to the most suitable resource):

Not all will apply to the activities being undertaking at the festival so seek professional advice if unsure. We recommend the team at Hop Forward Training who offer beginner Event Safety courses as well as safety consultancy for events of all sizes.

Intellectual property / Copyright

Intellectual property might not be an obvious area someone would consider when thinking about festivals. However, it is extremely important.

First of all, you will want to protect the assets such as your brand name, logos. Protecting your brand becomes important when a festival grows and attracts copycats or people who would try to trade in your name for their own benefit.

The other area to consider is music licensing.

If you are playing any recorded music at your event (including DJ sets), then you will need to consider getting a license so you can do that legally.

Playing recorded music to employees or customers is illegal in the UK without the correct permission.

In the UK, Festivals can apply for TheMusicLicense. The amount you pay will be dependent on the venue you are using and how you are using the music.

Whatever the size of event you are planning, you will likely need to consider what your first aid requirements will be. This article looks at what the legal requirements are for first aid at for events.

DISCLAIMER: Please bear in mind that this article is written for a UK audience, although it does highlight best practise which should be relevant in most other countries. It’s your responsibility to check the legal requirements of the country in which you operate. If you are unsure, please consult with a safety expert to advise you of the requirements.

First Aid Legal Requirements at Events

In the UK, first aid legal requirements at events are covered by the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981. These regulations require all employers to provide ‘adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities, and personnel to ensure their employees receive immediate attention if they are injured or taken ill at work’. The HSE recommends including event attendees also.

Additionally, there is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which covers most employer activities and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (MHSWR) 1999. Both of these include the requirement to assess and protect workers. The MHSWR (specifically) introduced the legal need to undertake risk assessments. As an event organiser, you have a legal duty of care to event attendees. Part of this included adequately assessing the first aid requirements for your event.

Event organisers could be prosecuted for breaching these pieces of legislation so it is worth knowing what they are and how they might affect you. If you use volunteers for your event, they are classed as employees, and you still need to undertake the same steps and precautions.

It’s worth remembering that an event site is a workplace from the moment you arrive to start the setup to leaving following close down. In the case of large-scale events, this can include hundreds of people being onsite for days beforehand.

Event organisers have a legal requirement to assess the first aid requirements of that work in addition to the actual ‘event’ opening hours.

There isn’t a law that specifically mentions legal requirements for first aid for event attendees. Still, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) strongly recommends that members of the public are included in any risk assessment undertaken for first aid requirements.

If your event is taking place on publicly owned land, you may need to participate in a Safety Advisory Group (SAG) during the event planning process. SAGs are forums co-ordinated by your local authority and include representatives from the emergency services and other relevant parties. They do not have any legal powers or responsibilities. Still, they provide an excellent opportunity to engage with people who can help you to meet your legal requirements for first aid amongst many other things.

Remember that the event organiser (you!) has the overall legal duty for ensuring public safety. You can not absolve yourself of this or pass it onto another person.

Legal, moral and financial reasons

Yes, there are legal requirements to provide suitable adequate first aid provision, but there are also moral and financial reasons for doing so.

From a moral perspective making sure that you have the right requirements in place is great for your event reputation. Event attendees will want to know you take safety seriously and that you provide adequate first aid facilities for them should accidents or injuries occur. Attendees might be less likely to attend any event where they perceive this isn’t the case.

Beyond legal and moral requirements, there is also a need to consider financial reasons. From an economic perspective having good quality first aid cover means taking care of people and reducing the chance of an injury becoming severe. If this were not the case, a first aid incident could escalate, or someone was seriously injured or killed. In this case, your approach to first aid provision will likely be called into question, and if you haven’t followed the right guidance could be open to prosecution or civil court cases.

How do I comply with the legal requirements?

Event Medical Risk Assessment

You should carry out a medical risk assessment of the build, event and takedown phases assessing things such as:

How many staff will be onsite at any one time?
What tasks will they be doing and are some more hazardous than others?
Are there any dangerous materials included (e.g. pyrotechnic chemicals)?
How many vehicles are needed onsite, and what type (e.g. cranes)?
How far away is the nearest hospital?
What is the nature of the event?
What is the nature of the venue?
What is the audience profile?
Any known history of the event (records of incidents)?
What is the expected attendance
What time of the year is the event taking place?
Are there any additional hazards (e.g. fire breathers)?
Do staff need to travel, work remotely or are lone workers?

Again, if you are unsure about how to undertake a medical risk assessment, you should seek help from a competent safety consultant. Risk assessments should be carried out by competent individuals to ensure they cover all possible hazards.

Undertaking suitable training allows you to become competent in undertaking a medical risk assessment; there are lots of options available in the UK, see our resources page for further information.

Event Medical Plan

You need to write a specific medical plan for your event that includes all of the information around your event medical provision based on the risk assessment you have written. For larger or high-risk events (e.g. motorsport) this may warrant being a separate document. In the case of smaller events, you may include it as part of an overall event safety management plan document.

This medical plan should include elements such as:

Medical Risk Assessment
Level of medical provision to be present (all various stages)
Who is providing the medical provision?
Location of the nearest accident and emergency hospital
A suitable system for recording incidents and any treatments given (including RIDDOR)
Emergency Plan
Major incident procedure
Communication Plan
What mobile response do you have on site?

Other resources

There are some useful sources of information and help available when planning medical provision at events, some of which are listed below for further reading.

The Purple Guide – Safety at Outdoor Events

Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds 6th Edition

The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981. Guidance on Regulation

What Are The Legal Requirements For Festivals?