Entertainment risks

In the late 19th century and leading into the first few decades of the 20th century, by any measure showbusiness was a high risk occupation. Face paint using mercury, acts using in some cases wild animals, almost no occupation workplace safety management, use of live ammunition and the ever presence threat of often doing your own stunts contributed to some horrific incidents in the early days of what we might refer to as the more modern entertainment genres of television and movies.

TV and movies aren’t the only entertainment genres with risk. The late 19th century was the time of some of the great illusionists in recorded history. Names like Maskelyne, Herrman, Dai Vernon and Devant come to mind.

We go to magic shows or watch magic on TV in part to feel a sense of wonder and excitement, and a strong, well-run show will help us to suspend our disbelief as audience members. However, sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes the mistake is small, and the magician can recover the performance without the audience even noticing. But other times, the problem is so large that disbelief is instantly broken, and the audience sees that magic is a performance that requires skill, planning, and management (and sometimes even just a little bit of luck) to be carried off well. There are some truly dangerous tricks in magic, and when these go wrong, people can be seriously hurt or even killed.

Behind Jean-Eugene Robert – Houdin (who according to Dr Will Given[1] is the world’s greatest illusionist), Harry Houdini was arguably the greatest magician that ever lived. Certainly, alongside David Copperfield and Penn & Teller, probably the most famous.

?Harry Houdini was fascinated with magic from a very young age, as he was exposed to stage life and artistic performances. He was born on March 24, 1874, in Budapest, Hungary. His original name was Erik Weisz. At the age of 13, he moved to New York with his father, where they lived in a boarding house and took different jobs for a living. Houdini developed an interest in the trapeze arts. In his childhood performances as a trapeze artist, he used to call himself the "Prince of Air." However, later, he changed his name as a tribute to the great French magician Robert Houdin, with a derivative of his nickname 'Ehrie'.

?He was credited with several absolutely death defying (or in some cases death causing) illusions including the Overboard Box Escape, East Indian Needle trick, Belly of the Whale escape, Milk Can Escape, Chinese Water Torture Cell, but he was less known for his being an amazing businessman. While developing his professional career as a celebrated magician performing extraordinarily amazing magical and risky feats he was developing a huge business empire – all about magic and entertainment, film, and live performance.

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But first and foremost, he was a serious businessman.

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He built his business like most entrepreneurs do – hard work and innovation; giving people what they wanted and needed then – distraction from the mundane of life. At the same time, while he was no novice to the magic trade – he also considered himself an independent scholar, always studying; learning new and more daring feats that ultimately brought him international fame before his demise at a?relatively?early age. He probably never thought for a minute that what he did yesterday was good enough for tomorrow. He specialised in escaping from the most harrowing situations and thousands of people would come to see him – to see if he really could get out of the seemingly-impossible predicaments he set up to showcase his skills.

?There was one time Houdini failed to escape from one of the safes he was in. He struggled and struggled to unlock it to make his exit. It transpires that the door of the safe he was in (and it was underwater) was NOT locked! He stayed trapped as his expectation was that the door was locked and in fact it wasn’t.

?s risk managers, we often work with managers who are so certain of their solution or their answer to a problem, they can refuse to consider other possibilities which might be obvious to the risk manager or the risk team. Business leaders can unconsciously limit themselves, leaders, and employees, and ultimately limit the results because they already think they know the solutions to problems and issues in their business. When that happens all the doors to possibility are padlocked shut, and actions limited to what we think we know.

?It’s never easy to learn that maybe the way we look at the world, the way we listen to other people, and the way we behave out of fear of failure may be what's in the way of our entire company or career making the great leap forward we had envisioned. The true magic of business is being willing to declare a seemingly impossible outcome we can’t imagine (as perceived from where we are standing currently) being able to achieve and realizing that our current perspective and the conversations we engage in are insufficient to unlock the door to realizing the outcome we so badly want to see happen. In the process, we lose our ultimate power to cause the magic to happen.

?Fast forward to the current day. Entertainment is pervasive - we are exposed to various lines of entertainment almost constantly. This is an industry which works to captivate, shock, inspire, entertain and amuse audiences every moment of the day. In this regard, risk-taking is essential and perhaps difficult to manage. As an outsider looking into this industry, there are a few threat vectors which would be well established and understood and a few which, given the dynamic nature of the entertainment industry, are likely fast moving and possibly not well understood.

?Some of these risks might surprise people looking into the Entertainment industry. Some of these risks are?noted across all business sectors and include

·????????Reputation related threats: In the entertainment industry, a performer’s image is just as important as their genuine talent. In many cases this may even be more important. When it is identified and publicised, ‘Bad’ or unpopular behaviour is usually punished with negative press, merchandise boycotts and declining sales, and a drying up of future work opportunities. Consider Ellen DeGeneres and her wildly successful TV talk show. DeGeneres’ decision to end her long-running daytime talk show was announced in the wake of reports about?The Ellen DeGeneres Show?allegedly being a toxic work environment for employees and accusations about her alleged behaviour on set. The show was cancelled by DeGeneres ahead of what was assumed to be a forced cancellation by Warner Bros. Not only will the incident potentially cost her future work, but it also likely resulted in the termination of those working on the show.

·????????Insurance liability: Entertainment companies, regularly contract with third parties and consequently are responsible for work environments and protection of contractors’ and vendors’ private data, which if compromised can result in third party liability exposure. This can arise from event management and subsequent advertising actions.

·????????Dealing with the talent: Failure of talent to perform can be challenging and result in loss. This can be managed through insurance. Changes in talent including pregnancy, weight loss or gain, sickness and unavailability become threats the industry needs to respond to.

·????????Violence: Especially at hosted events is a continual threat. Fans, spectators and participants are all potential threat vectors to be managed. Some strategies include banning things like outside alcohol, drug testing, banning backpacks, cameras and limiting access to over 18’s, access to specific areas, including costs of crowd management, paramedic response and traffic management are all real and need to be considered when planning events.

·????????Cyber threat: Cyber risk exist in?multiple vectors?in the entertainment industry. Streaming services like Netflix, Stan and Spotify are reliant on uninterrupted service as are services like YouTube and mainstream free to air channels. A cyber-attack compromising those platforms would impact subscribers paying a monthly fee for on-demand content. Equally advertisers seeking agreed visibility and access would be looking for legal remedies.

?As?Houdini?said, "the real showmanship consists not of what you really do but what mystery-loving public thinks you do'". Even though these illusionists offer lots of mystery, some of them tread a delicate line between mystery and reality which is not risk-free.

[1] https://www.carnivalofillusion.com/magic-oracle-authors.php#will