German Massevents Symposium

German Massevents Symposium gives us a few pointers and begs the question: Are we doing enough to solve perennial problems in the events industry in the UK.

Having presented to and run focus groups at the German Massevents Symposium at the weekend I was struck by the dedication of professionals across the world to create a central risk management concept by engaging professionals in its development.

The German team brought in experts from all over the world including the UK, the Netherlands, Brazil, France and Germany. There were papers on the Brazil World Cup, interagency working, counter terrorism, crisis perception and the NHS delivery of event related planning. It was amazing just how many similar conclusions emerged from the papers presented on Mass events and just how close we all really are to the same good practice, issues and problems.

Many countries and organisations were represented and everything was focused on a German EU project to deliver a range of outcomes related to making events safer through documentation, computer programmes, focused education and a feedback system to support good practice. Overseen by Professor Frank Fiedrich from the University of Wuppertal and driven by Beate Coellen, this project is one of the most astonishing that I have ever had the pleasure to be involved in. The project is being supported by professionals from across Germany in a range of multi agency areas and the outcome could be one of the most influential in the history of health’ safety and crowd management at mass events. I was introduced to this project many years ago by Sabine Funk from IBIT, and wish now that I had had the time to become more involved.

The whole event was funded by the German Government and participants only had to pay their transport costs to get there. The presentations and work groups were fascinating and the brains in the room colossal. Good discussion, no argument, no egos just great conversations and outcomes. We could learn a lot from this.