Essential Festival Security Tips For A Safe Event

With a calendar that dominates the British summer, festival security is arguably one of the most crucial elements of keeping festivalgoers safe, events running smoothly, and performers secure in what they do. It’s also something that often goes overlooked until the last moment, which can lead to devastating impacts, both to your guests and your bottom line.

This article discusses the importance of planning your festival security in advance, the key festival security tips from our insider’s perspective, and key aspects of risk assessment, forward planning and multi-layered festival security that form a comprehensive package.

Key Festival Security Tips: From Opening Act To Clean Up

For any festival, you should have trained security personnel stationed across key sections of your grounds, such as entrances, bars, food service areas, staging areas, and technical set-ups (like lighting or sound rigs). This acts as both a deterrent to any possible criminals and as a trained and reassuring presence for authorised guests.

However, no two areas require the same level of coverage – you wouldn’t expect your entrance areas to match the security around bars or food service, for instance – and those risks must be managed seamlessly and with minimal guest disruption.

We’ll break down the process section by section and provide industry-standard festival safety guidelines on how to secure your event effectively.

Pre-Planning & Risk Assessment Stage

Any successful festival security solution begins with understanding the risks you face and how to mitigate them safely and effectively. These can be multifaceted and encompass every element that could present a possible hazard, including:

• Where you’re hosting your festival, including ground elevation and composition
• The time of day you’re running your event between
• Whether you plan to have guests staying overnight (camping, for example)
• Expected weather conditions for the event
• Strategic locations for your first aiders and emergency facilities (like defibrillators)
• Expected attendance figures, usually based on past estimates for larger events
• Infrastructure like power, cabling and back-up generators

We’ve excelled in supporting those early stages, delivering bespoke risk assessments and safety analyses for events nationwide. That’s alongside overnight protection for critical infrastructure, best exemplified by our work for the Six Nations, on behalf of Virgin Media.

Entrance & Exit Security At Festivals

All entrances to festival grounds should be manned constantly during your event, and always by suitably trained event security professionals. Not only does that help create a smooth process for ingress and egress, but it’s also setting the tone for what you expect from your guests.

A good balance can be achieved with:

• Ticket Checkpoints – Having security personnel at your entrance isn’t just an ideal deterrent to potential trespassers; it also provides a valuable layer of protection. They’re also able to scan or manually check any tickets and turn away unauthorised guests, and form a crucial part of any access control at festivals.
• Bag Search Points – Contraband, like drugs and alcohol, is a pain point for any festival, and especially so for larger-scale events like music festivals. We’d advise having officers who are trained to check through bags and can identify illegal substances.
• Canine Handlers – With dogs available for both deterrence and detection, we recommend that you invest in canine security services if you’re expecting significant visitor numbers, or if you’re particularly concerned about the presence of drugs – a notable issue given the increase in drug-related offences at music festivals.

As part of our work with the Clitheroe Food Festival, we delivered entrance solutions for a crowd of more than 25,000 (with original projected figures of only 20,000), managing multiple entry requirements across a busy town centre location, an evolving risk profile, and emergency services liaisons.

Protecting Food Service & Bar Areas

Often, a significant challenge in event safety planning is maintaining a trained and licensed presence around areas that serve alcohol or are likely to see larger crowds of people (outside of your staging areas). We’d recommend incorporating:

• DS-Licensed Security Operatives – A cut above event stewards, these officers have undergone extensive training in dealing with the issues that arise from alcohol consumption, including conflict management and de-escalation techniques.
• WAVE Training As Standard – An initiative that ProFM have been keen to pioneer. Welfare and Vulnerability Engagement (WAVE) is additional training delivered to security guards to ensure they’re able to recognise the early-warning signs of spiking, intoxication, and drug use – crucial for busy bars or food stalls.

With celebrations of British food and drink so popular UK-wide, understanding how festival crime prevention and security intersect is essential in protecting profits, guests and assets. It can also mean repeat visitors and a smoother transition to an annual event.

Securing Stages & Performances

A major concern for music festival security, or those that see regular performers (sports meets, for instance), is the inherent risk associated with having stages and special guests, especially if they’re well-recognised. Protecting those areas forms an integral part of any festival security package, and as part of that, we’d advise:

• Specialist Crowd Officers – Crowd control at festivals is a headache, especially for events that look to draw in the crowds we’d associate with household names like Glastonbury. Strategically positioning officers along the barriers between stage and crowd, as well as on the outskirts, near toilets and bar areas, and close to emergency facilities like first aid tents.
• Static, Stageside Guarding – A more stationary presence than crowd control officers, your static presence is equally important. These officers can help establish key boundaries between guest and performer areas, as well as offer support to festivalgoers where needed.
• Supervisory Personnel – It goes without saying that emergency response at festivals is crucial, especially with horror stories dominating the news throughout the summer. Supervisors help keep all officers on the same page, coordinate support during crowd difficulties or emergencies, and act as a communication point for backstage staff.

It’s also important to consider the wider implications of special guests at your festival. Investing in close protection officers, for instance, can alleviate the concerns that famous faces might feel about performing, especially at a new festival.

Post-Event Support

When the show winds down and your guests are leaving – whether that’s to their camping areas, vehicles, or onto public transport – your considerations aren’t done. Health and safety at events is an ongoing challenge that doesn’t end after the show is over, but there are measures you can implement to ensure a smooth exit for everyone involved:

• Clearly Marked Paths – Particularly important if you’ve served alcohol, or your event runs late into the night. We’d advise planning multiple exit routes, which could encompass alternate paths, as well as back through the entrances, all marked with temporary lighting, fencing, barriers and support stewards.
• Highly Visible Security Officers – Although barriers and fencing provide a good guideline, the presence of alcohol, adrenaline, and low-light conditions can create a challenging environment to manage. As part of your investment in manned guarding for events, ensure that the exit is as well-maintained and secure as every other aspect of your festival security.

Security personnel at events can also assist with post-party clean-up and escort any lingering guests off the festival grounds. That’s part and parcel of employing professionals in festival security – from beginning to end, you’re supported constantly.

Exceptional Festival Security With ProFM Group

From extensive, multi-year support for Britain’s iconic airshows across the South West, to corporate and comic conventions, ProFM’s reputation for bespoke event security management often precedes us.

Contact us today to discuss what you’ve got planned, and discover how the UK’s leading security provider can support with expert festival security.