Public safety responsibilities

[Biskit]

This isn't strictly a technical question, but ralating to building licensing, safety of the public and I guess you could say 'Front of House' by quite a broad definition...

 

Our venues are public buildings, each having a main auditorium with stage etc which we consider to be our 'main house', and a multitude of smaller reception and meeting rooms. Our 'main house' rooms all have removeable seating so can be used as an open space, or indeed any furniture configuration, as well as theatre style seating.

 

When we have a main house 'event' we provide full event planning, technical support and staffing, box office facilities and, crucially, Front of House management and Stewarding (ushers), all as part of the deal. In other words, on these occasions the buildings operate very much like a theatre venue.

 

On other occasions, we hire out our rooms as basic meeting spaces: we serve a massive range of local groups ranging from club and society meetings, to business and charity AGMs, evening classes, and even martial arts, yoga, tai-chi, Zumba, etc. Our 'main house' rooms are available to hire on this basis, and are used regularly just like our smaller rooms. On these 'non-event' days, the buildings are typically staffed by just one or two caretakers.

 

So.. two different 'modes of operation'... simple... but... last night we had a local history club meeting in one of our main house rooms - they are a regular hirer and their meetings are usually the same 30-40 people every month. However last night the subject was of significant local interest, so about 150 people turned up, and the 'meeting' was, by any normal definitian, an 'event' with a doors and start time, an interval, refreshments served (which they bring themselves), a cabaret singer (who brought her own little PA system, performing her own material), a keynote speaker, and even a 45 minute film showing (they brought their own screen and projector). Yet because, as far as we were concerned, it was 'just a meeting' we had only one member of staff in the building, no technical, no bars, no FOH.

 

My question is, as a venue, what obligations would you say we have for things like public safety in these circumstances? Our usual 'meeting room hire' policy is that the group leader takes responsibility for evacuating and accounting for their people in an emergency, and hirers sign a statement to this effect. For a ticketed event of this size in that venue, we would have required a FOH manager and three ushers, as well as technical, bar and box-office staff, and our staff would deal with any evacuation. So either we are vastly over-staffing many of our events, or we need to somehow close this loophole - but we are really struggling with this grey area between what constitutes a big meeting/talk/class/whatever, vs a public event. Last night was probably a one-off with this particular group, but this issue does come up quite frequently. Our hirers are understandably reluctant to 'upgrade' to an event booking, as the cost to them is at least a 5-fold increase over a meeting booking. As we are a Council venue, there are political sensitivities too, especially if we were seen to be 'pricing out' local community groups.

 

We can't be the only place to have this kind of issue? How do others deal with it? I must emphasise I'm not the one who will take the decisions on this, and we are seperately seeking advice on it from the legal/licensing sides, but I'm interested as a conversation topic how this is dealt with elsewhere.

[Just Some Bloke]

At a previous venue we used to deal with this on the basis (written into risk assessments) that we would have one member of FOH staff for up to every 100 people. Thus a meeting for 40 people would be fine with 1 of your caretakers as long as they had been trained in evacuation procedures. When 150 were expected we would have put another member of staff on for safety reasons. If the pricing was based on one member of staff and the event needed 2 then we would have recharged for the other member of staff (in our case at £15 per hour).

 

Most licensing authorities will concentrate on how many people are attending and how easy it is to get out (make sure you have enough aisles etc.) rather than what it is you're doing.

[Biskit]

At a previous venue we used to deal with this on the basis (written into risk assessments) that we would have one member of FOH staff for up to every 100 people. Thus a meeting for 40 people would be fine with 1 of your caretakers as long as they had been trained in evacuation procedures. When 150 were expected we would have put another member of staff on for safety reasons. If the pricing was based on one member of staff and the event needed 2 then we would have recharged for the other member of staff (in our case at £15 per hour).

 

Most licensing authorities will concentrate on how many people are attending and how easy it is to get out (make sure you have enough aisles etc.) rather than what it is you're doing.

Thanks for the reply. What you describe is exactly our policy 'on paper'. For an event we generally allow for one member of FOH staff per 100 audience, but with a minimum of two or three (venue dependant) to cover all areas adequately. All our 'small' rooms have capacities below 100, although we could have more than 100 in total in the building if multiple rooms are in use (very frequent occurance), but in such cases, which booking should cover the cost of extra staff if required? The main auditoria can accomodate more than 100, but are generally used where a large open space is required (for dance etc) rather than to accomodate large numbers. The problem as last night, is that we (and probably the hirer) were not aware until all those people turned up that it would be so busy - they normally have far fewer people, and it wasn't a ticketed event so we had no warning of numbers. If a hirer tells us in advance that they are expecting over 100 people, we provide extra staff (for a fee) as you describe, but this rarely happens, and the first we know is when all those people just turn up, by which time it is too late to get extra staff in.

 

As an aside, we are fully licensed venues, and all our buildings and rooms have documented capacities based on the available exits etc. There isn't a question of the capacities being exceeded. However there seems to be some confusion over whether/how to apply our staffing ratios and other policies for basic room hires which are not considered to be an 'event' under the license.

[GR1]

In your risk assessments you should also have a policy for electrical equipment brought in by clients to confirm that they have a maintenance and repair plan in place. Usually kit supplied by a member of a competent trade association or the presentation of a PAT test certificate is the way to do this.

 

I think you also need to find a way of adding extra services to your basic venue package which don't increase costs five fold. As a council venue you are there to provide a service so maybe a more flexible approach to charging would mean that users could see why they need to pay a bit more to get more without becoming a full blown public event. There is a difference in the back up a meeting for 150 needs from that of the same meeting with 30 people attending.

[Just Some Bloke]

If a hirer tells us in advance that they are expecting over 100 people, we provide extra staff (for a fee) as you describe, but this rarely happens, and the first we know is when all those people just turn up, by which time it is too late to get extra staff in.

 

Strictly speaking what you should do, then, is to put the decision on the hirer. Tell them a cost for up to 100 people and a cost for up to 200 people. If they chose the first and more than 100 arrive then the extra will have to be refused admission. If they chose the latter then they're fine. Maybe they would chose the first option normally but if they think something may be busy they could go with the second option and take the risk of paying extra when they may not need to, as opposed to having to turn people away because they were cheapskates! That takes the decision-making away from you but keeps you covered.

[Biskit]

In your risk assessments you should also have a policy for electrical equipment brought in by clients to confirm that they have a maintenance and repair plan in place. Usually kit supplied by a member of a competent trade association or the presentation of a PAT test certificate is the way to do this.

 

I think you also need to find a way of adding extra services to your basic venue package which don't increase costs five fold. As a council venue you are there to provide a service so maybe a more flexible approach to charging would mean that users could see why they need to pay a bit more to get more without becoming a full blown public event. There is a difference in the back up a meeting for 150 needs from that of the same meeting with 30 people attending.

 

Thanks. We do have a policy for electrical equipment - exactly as you describe, and this is well observed by our regular groups (including the example last night).

 

I agree with you entirely about the last point and this is the crux of our problem. It was perhaps a slight red-herring to compare to the basic meeting fee with a full event booking - we can be flexible and add extra resources and/or staff as requested. However our basic room hire charges are (by political decision) very very low, so adding any extras at all does represent a massive increase in percentage terms, which can then be politically sensitive - comes with the public sector territory I guess! The irony is that we end up with some 'proper events' which have less audience and are less complicated, yet have far more staff on duty, than a big 'meeting' such as that last night. The problems we have are: 1. defining the difference and 2. actually knowing when a particular booking falls into the other category.

[Junior8]

So.. two different 'modes of operation'... simple... but... last night we had a local history club meeting in one of our main house rooms - they are a regular hirer and their meetings are usually the same 30-40 people every month. However last night the subject was of significant local interest, so about 150 people turned up, and the 'meeting' was, by any normal definitian, an 'event' with a doors and start time, an interval, refreshments served (which they bring themselves), a cabaret singer (who brought her own little PA system, performing her own material), a keynote speaker, and even a 45 minute film showing (they brought their own screen and projector). Yet because, as far as we were concerned, it was 'just a meeting' we had only one member of staff in the building, no technical, no bars, no FOH.

 

My question is, as a venue, what obligations would you say we have for things like public safety in these circumstances? Our usual 'meeting room hire' policy is that the group leader takes responsibility for evacuating and accounting for their people in an emergency, and hirers sign a statement to this effect. For a ticketed event of this size in that venue, we would have required a FOH manager and three ushers, as well as technical, bar and box-office staff, and our staff would deal with any evacuation. So either we are vastly over-staffing many of our events, or we need to somehow close this loophole - but we are really struggling with this grey area between what constitutes a big meeting/talk/class/whatever, vs a public event. Last night was probably a one-off with this particular group, but this issue does come up quite frequently. Our hirers are understandably reluctant to 'upgrade' to an event booking, as the cost to them is at least a 5-fold increase over a meeting booking. As we are a Council venue, there are political sensitivities too, especially if we were seen to be 'pricing out' local community groups.

 

We can't be the only place to have this kind of issue? How do others deal with it? I must emphasise I'm not the one who will take the decisions on this, and we are seperately seeking advice on it from the legal/licensing sides, but I'm interested as a conversation topic how this is dealt with elsewhere.

 

As it happens my local history group was faced with this issue last year and decided that whatever the subject admission in future would be by ticket only. At a venue I help out at unless the hiring is for a class or similar but is of the kind you specify where numbers are not known and events are advertised outside admission even if free goes through the box office and is by ticket only. This also has the advantage that in many cases the space can be changed if numbers are either lower or higher than expected.