Event Risk Management Solutions - ERMS

07/15/2022

A counter terrorism resource/toolkit for festival/event organizers from Protect UK; provides messaging campaign to enhance safety & security awareness and reporting e.g. Security is a team effort. Stay vigilant and be aware of your surroundings. Report anything that doesn’t seem right to security or the police. Trust your instincts and ACT. In an emergency call 911.

We have launched our Summer Vigilance campaign. This campaign builds on many years of ‘award winning’ Action Counters Terrorism (“ACT”) campaigns. New materials and content are going live now to ensure we are maximising exposure during key summer events.

05/04/2022

Last week, I had the opportunity to join (remotely) a UK panel of industry security & crowd safety leaders during the IPM15 ILMC Production Meeting in London to discuss ‘Rethinking Risk and Building Resilience in Event Operations’ After 75 mins of thought-provoking conversation with my fellow panelists, 7 key themes emerged which I believe will continue to shape/influence our approach to event risk management in the near-term risk horizon (2022) and further out to 2023/24. Hopefully, the attached event risk horizon thematic analysis will inspire thoughtful conversations to guide strategic and operational event risk analysis for 2022, an environment which remains characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

04/19/2022

After 2 ½ years, my MSc (Security & Risk Management) journey has finally came to a close two weeks ago when I submitted my 14,824-word dissertation (actually c. 25,000 words & 95 pages when including appendices). Like many others before me, I now have a deeper understanding of how much I don't know, as opposed to how much I thought I knew. A humbling conclusion, given my study into counter-terrorism (CT) and events commenced 25 years ago, during my one year tour as the Ops Officer for Australia's CT & Special Recovery Squadron in 1997, followed by 15 years major event / Olympic security planning across 9 countries to the last 2 1/2 years of reading/researching and writing during my quest to interpret/synthesize the interrelated topics of risk, evidenced-based CT practices, lone actor terrorism, environmental criminological perspectives (SCP) & decision analysis with respect to how it can support event organizers make better risk-informed decisions for event security in today's uncertain & volatile world. Hopefully by the end of June, I will be able publicly share it after the it has been reviewed/marked by the Board of Examiners!

09/28/2021

Thursday 30th Sept - free registration to the "Physical and Psycho-social Aspects of Protecting Crowded Space" online course. Don't miss this opportunity to listen to industry thought leaders (proudly my friends & colleagues) discussing crowd safety & security challenges & the future risk horizon.

MOM and CDSSL are offering a free, online and interactive course on the 30th September 2021 which focuses on protecting crowded space.

05/26/2021

A great resource coming from ESA & NIVA - 6 page Covid-19 compliant reopening checklist

05/26/2021

Covid19 compliant signage for events !

04/27/2021

Looking forward to joining industry and terrorism experts William Braniff, Anna Mansueti & Erin Miller at tomorrows' SIA GovSummit 2021 session: The Nashville 2020 Attack on Critical Infrastructure: From Specifics to Implications. 1:45pm–3:00pm EST. Registration for the GOvSummit is free for Government/Military/Defense/Public Safety Employees.

On Christmas Day 2020, an RV parked outside of an AT&T transmission center exploded in a suicidal and conspiracy-fueled act of targeted violence, damaging over 40 buildings and injuring at least eight local residents. The bombing and the second-order impacts led to cell service disruptions in at lea...

04/16/2021

As we continue to prepare Covid-19 compliant event safety and management plans in anticipation for return to events, as event organizers, we also need to not lose sight of the importance of reviewing & updating event evacuation plans. In early 2020, ERMS & Blerter published our findings from the 2019 events industry survey into the preparedness and resilience of event teams - 163 respondents from seven countries. The findings and insights from the survey responses were surprising: 37% of the respondents indicated that they did not have an evacuation plan & 75% indicated that they had never conducted evacuation training or drills with their team.
Event evacuation plans & other emergency response procedures are a critical component of your risk management plan. These risk control measures may not prevent the risk from occurring but they will reduce the potential severity of consequences (harm) after an adverse incident has occurred, be it a severe weather triggered evacuation of your event or an active assailant incident. Not having an evacuation plan nor testing and exercising your plan, means that you as an event organizer may be breaching your duty of care to mitigate foreseeable risks to ‘a level as low as reasonably possible’. To address some of these industry knowledge gaps that the survey had identified, I co-hosted a webinar with EarthNetWorks titled "Staying Ahead of the Storm Front: Risk Based Decisions & Responses during Severe Weather Events" in late 2019. The presentation provides an overview of the principles for developing a risk-based evacuation plan & can be downloaded from the link below. My parting question is "how prepared and resilient is your event team for adverse events in today's volatile and uncertain world?

https://get.earthnetworks.com/hubfs/Weather%20Safety%20Warmup/WSW%20Nov_Staying%20Ahead%20of%20the%20Storm%20Front.pdf

04/14/2021

An industry colleague recently asked me a question regarding a major event security paper I posted on a forum"...was any consideration given to the type of attack such as the Oct. 1, 2017 Las Vegas shooting, where a sniper from an adjacent hotel shot into a crowd of people attending an outdoor concert across the street? "In response, I highlighted that in 2004, UNICRI hosted a closed door symposium on 'Threat Assessment & Intelligence Assessment for Major Events'. One of the papers presented & published, was by Norm Jarvis (former US Secret Service agent who was the venue security operational lead for the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympic Games): 'Buffer Zone: Security Intelligence Operations at National Security Special Event Conventions in the USA' . Norm highlighted the risk from elevated positions (high ground including hotels) for stand-off weapons delivery ex*****on by snipers. I was most fortunate to have worked with Norm & the USSS protective security team during Salt Lake 2002.
The risk never changes, threat actors evolve and adapt, while conversely, the 'dread factor' or perception of risk fades over time until the next critical incident occurs at an event or festival.

03/18/2021

COVID19 EVENT RISK HORIZON 2021-2022: VOLATILE, AMBIGUOUS, COMPLEX & UNCERTAIN "VUCA'. In April 2020, I released the 1st edition of the Covid-19 Event Risk Horizon to support my friends & colleagues planning in an environment characterized as VUCA. Fast forward 12 months, the near horizon remains uncertain but there is a glimmer of light emerging towards this Summer / Fall. The Q1 2021 edition aligns my Covid-19 risk horizon assessment based on current data, both empirical (CDC) & anecdotal (industry based) & assumptions to support risk-based planning & decision making in 2021. To all the event professionals out there, keep up the good fight,there are so many communities patiently waiting for the day when you will bring creativity, fun & purpose back into their lives ! Please consider these JPG slides as 'open source' (please acknowledge the source),drop me a line if you would like a copy of a high resolution JPG slides to use.
Peter

02/17/2021

FROM RISK TO RESILIENCE: CONTEMPORARY INSIGHTS INTO EVENT RISK MANAGEMENT
8,000 words later, just submitted my chapter contribution for publication. The chapter abstract:
Drawing upon the existing body of literature for event risk management, from Berlonghi (1990) to a recent 2019 industry survey on event risk management practices (Ashwin and Wilson, 2020), this chapter explores contemporary risk issues in today’s volatile, ambiguous, complex and uncertain world. First, the inter-related risk constructs pertaining to socio-cultural theoretical perspectives of risk will be discussed; to what extent does an event organizers perception of risk influence their approach to risk management and decision-making? Following on, the second part of the chapter explores first, the cyber-criminal threat to event digital eco-systems; and second, domestic terrorism, the evoving threat from homegrown violent extremists, domestic violent extremists and ‘lone wolves’. Finally, new perspectives for risk mitigation and event resilience will be offered including situational crime prevention, an evidence-based criminological perspective and other ‘real world’ applications for event organizers to enhance event team preparedness and resilience to adversity and uncertainty.

01/31/2021

After deliberating for some time on my MSc dissertation research topic (Security & Risk Management, University of Leicester), I am hoping that my research into "To what extent does the Perception of Risk influence Terrorism Risk Management strategies for Events?" will provide new insights for event organizers and security professionals/ planners from the private & public sectors.

The four questions I looking to answer through a systematic literature review research approach are:
Q1. To what extent does the perception of risk influence an event organizers approach to terrorism risk management?
Q2. Has the advent of homegrown violent extremism, domestic violent extremism and lone actor attacks changed event organizers perception of terrorism risk?
Q3. To what extent do current risk management models support decision-making for the allocation of counter terrorism resources for events?
Q4. Do terrorism risk assessments inform the division of responsibility for funding of anti-terrorism risk control measures between event organizers and public safety authorities?

Now for six months of research / writing (15,000 words) !