An informative guide by Ryan Soper
Imagine your event: laughter echoes, smiles abound, and everything runs smoothly. Now, picture the horror – power cuts, food poisoning, a catastrophic bouncy castle incident (yes, it’s happened!). Event planning can be a rollercoaster, but fear not, fellow organiser! The key to calm amidst the chaos lies in a powerful tool: the Risk Assessment and Method Statement (RAMS).
Before you start picturing mountains of paperwork and legalese, relax! This guide will not only demystify what a RAMS is but also equip you to create a solid foundation for your event’s safety by writing your very own risk assessment and method statement. But remember, just like that epic zip line you’re considering (safety first!), sometimes calling in the experts is the smartest (and quickest) route to risk assessment success. That’s where MediRek comes in, but more on that later…
Why Risk Assessment and Method Statements (RAMS) Matter (More Than You Think)
Think of your event as a complex tapestry. Each thread – the venue, activities, catering, entertainment, transport, crowd management – contributes to the overall picture. But what if some threads are loose, frayed, or missing? A RAMS helps you identify those weak spots before they unravel your masterpiece. It’s like having superhero vision, scanning for potential gremlins and developing solutions before they even become an issue.
Unmasking the Gremlins: Identifying All Possible Risks
From allergic reactions to technical glitches, weather woes to crowd control nightmares, the list of potential risks is vast. A thorough RAMS considers all possibilities, no matter how unlikely they seem. Think spilling a drink is the worst? Imagine a sudden downpour sending your carefully planned outdoor festival packing! Don’t underestimate the power of a good “what-if” session. Your aim is to walk through each aspect of each event in it’s entirety and consider what could go wrong, no matter how minor it is. It can be as simple as just jotting down the potential issues on a piece of paper. However for more complex events, this might become quite a long-term exercise and require consulting with other experts and professionals who might hold better knowledge on certain topics. For instance, if you were planning to have a grand temporary structure up for the duration of your event, you’d need to consider that extreme wind and weather conditions might affect the integrity of the structure. Most of these structures will have max loads and tolerances, and your contractor, or the structure manufacturer should be able to advise on this. However, what you can very simplistically do is note down a potential issue as ‘the structure might fall over due to poor weather’ and grade/mitigate from there.
Grading the Gremlins: Likelihood vs. Severity
So, you’ve identified a bunch of risks. Now what? It’s time to prioritise. We don’t stress about stubbed toes the same way we worry about a fire hazard, right? RAMS use a grading system that considers two key factors: likelihood (how probable is it?) and severity (how bad could it be?). This helps you focus your energy on the gremlins with the biggest bite, ensuring you don’t get lost in a sea of minor inconveniences. Most commonly nowadays you’ll see the 5×5 Likelihood vs Severity model used for grading the risks. This simple system gives each risk a rating out of 5 in terms of likelihood and the severity of the risk occurring and forms a very strong foundation for your risk assessment as you quantify and categorise larger and lengthier documents with far greater ease.
Ordinarily, in terms of likelihood, 1 is something that is highly, highly unlikely to happen, but there is a chance. You don’t have to be silly about these risks, like categorising the risk of ostrich attack at your music festival in the Cotswolds, as this has complete improbability of this occurring owing to the lack of ostriches in the region. However, if (for some insane reason) you decided to have an ostrich enclosure at your festival then the chance of an ostrich attacking a guest is probably still unlikely if they are controlled properly, but it is not nil. You may want to generalise this risk factor a little bit and instead categorise the risk as ‘Ostrich escaping enclosure’ and then considering the fact they may attack event participants as an impact factor instead. This will prevent duplication and overly arduous documentation.
A ‘5’ rating for likelihood is something that will almost certainly happen. You’ll notice that in the matrix, as soon as something becomes a 5 for likelihood, the chance of that risk being graded as a serious issue becomes very likely. This is because as safety professionals, we don’t really like ‘almost certain’ risks, even if they have a very minor impact. The chances are, there are likely simple controls that can be put in place to reduce the likelihood of this risk occurring, But we’ll explore this in more detail a bit later on…
Similar goes for the 1-5 rating for impact. While the 5×5 risk matrix system can be applied to many different environments (you could even use it to risk assess your latest business venture), usually in HSE risk assessment terms, we are usually categorising the risk against the severity of illness or injury, with a 1 being a incident that will not, or cannot cause illness or injury and a 5 being something that will almost certainly result in a life changing injury or fatality. For instance, a (1,5) MEDIUM risk could be something like the risk of a ice hockey player suffering an injury that causes a catastrophic bleed. In all the ice hockey that is played the world over, it rarely happens, but it does happen and so cannot be ignored. The chance of such a serious injury occurring is statistically unlikely, but the outcome of a catastrophic bleed is often fatality and so, the sensible grading would be (1,5) or potentially (2,5). You can also consider factors such as environmental impact, loss of public trust or even financial implication as impact factors when grading, but I’d advise that you set these parameters clearly at the start of the exercise to save confusion.
You should undertake research into similar incidents and events and look at any documentation you have access to. You might consider news articles, association or industry body publications, HSE publications and records such as incident logs and injury books from previous or similar events. This will help you effectively grade these risks, but bear in mind, the risk grading should be bespoke to the application. I.E. A risk assessment and method statement is not one size fits all that you can write and forget about, you need to be looking at the unique factors of your specific setup.
It’s also important that you, at least initially, grade all the risks at ‘face value’ rather than considering any mitigations that you would put in place. What you can consider is outside mitigations that aren’t necessarily implemented by you when grading the risks. For instance, if you had a large, deep lake on your event site, you’d consider the risk of somebody falling into it. However, if this was then secured by a 6 foot height, sturdy fence that the landowner had installed previously, then this will reduce the likelihood of that risk occurring dramatically.
Once you have given each risk a probability and impact rating, you’ll then find that the matrix then identifies how much of an issue that risk is. For instance, if a risk came up as an Extreme(25) issue, then I would argue that you would potentially have to look at the event or activity not going ahead as this risk is far to great to ignore and given the impact rating, will likely result in a fatality if it occurs.
The risk grading section is potentially the most frustrating part of the exercise as you’ll almost certainly find yourself then regrading other risks as less or more severe as you move through your event risk profile. This is because you’ll personal risk benchmark will move as you consider different things and a more serious risk ends up graded the same as the something markedly less severe.
Had enough of this lark? You’ll still need a risk assessment as part of your safety planning activities, but why not get us to have a look for you? Drop us a line and we’ll get back to you and see how we can help.
No Gremlin Left Behind: Assessing Every Activity and Area
Don’t think a RAMS is just for the big stuff. Remember that tapestry? Every thread matters. That means assessing each activity, area, and element of your event, from the food stalls to the stage setup, from the parking lot to the emergency exits. It’s a meticulous process, but crucial for a truly secure event. Think of it as a tailor, meticulously inspecting every stitch before finishing a high end suit.
For smaller events, one ‘catch-all’ risk assessment might be sufficient, but in a lot of circumstances, your RAMS actually become RAMS-s or whatever the plural of Risk Assessment and Method Statement is! This is often preferable as it makes referencing back to the document(s) far easier in the future. It may also be the case that the overall risk assessment documentation includes risk assessments generated by other contractors such as caterers. You may not drill down as far as the grading of the caterer’s risk of burns during service, but I’d certainly want to see what the caterer has done in consideration of this respect. If this risk is poorly managed it could have big implications on the wider event, but is not necessarily a risk that you need to directly manage, just one that you need to see actually is managed.
The important thing is that your assessment remains a through and complete exercise. The end goal is not necessarily the document you generate, but rather the exercise undertaken in order to produce it, that’s where the value of the undertaking lies.
Planning Ahead: RAMS as Your Secret Weapon
Think RAMS are just a box-ticking exercise? Think again! Done early in the planning stage, they can actually enhance your planning. By identifying potential issues, you can proactively avoid them, design them out or develop mitigation strategies. It’s like having a crystal ball that shows you where the bumps in the road are, so you can smooth them out before the big day where it’s far easier to devise a solution and implement it. Imagine ditching the last-minute scramble because you already have a plan for that potential power outage! Outside of events, good risk management is the cornerstone of business resilience planning for a reason, and this mentality can and should be applied to the event and venue space too. Identifying and managing risks increases the resilience of your operation in the face of adversity.
Sometimes, having an outside, dedicated safety advisor and planner is preferable as they are more likely to be able to step back and be appropriately critical about certain factors of your plan if necessary. As such, if this is now all looking a bit heavyweight, you might want to consider contacting us and we can discuss how we can help support your event.
Profiling the Gremlins: Techniques for Deeper Insights
Now, let’s delve into some advanced techniques for profiling your risks. These will help you go beyond just identifying them and truly understand their nature:
- SWOT Analysis: This approach is insanely popular in the business planning world. However it can also be a very useful tool in the event planning space too with some adaptation. You can use this tool to assess your event’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This holistic approach, will more likely provide a fairly high level overview of the event or venue, but can uncover hidden risks and vulnerabilities and gets the ball rolling when tackling a more complex assessment from scratch. SWOT works particularly well if the event has run previously, but you can also consider the factors of a event concept you have. SWOT also works very well for debriefing activities.
- Strengths: What will your event do well, or has done well in the past? What went really well? For instance, you might consider that having 5 entry gates to access the event meant that people could access the event really easily and there was no crowd management issues at the gate. You might also state that the layout and signage of the campsite meant that people could find specific areas very easily and as such security and medics responding to incidents were able to cut down response times.
- Weaknesses: What weaknesses do you perceive your event currently has? Do you have an act booked who’s appearances have a history of mosh pits or crowd disorder which could lead to incident/injury? On previous occasions what didn’t work very well, maybe the radio setup wasn’t suitable and you think you’ll need to invest in more repeaters on the event site this year. The intention of this section is looking at known information to see what could potentially derail the event.
- Opportunities: This section is where this tool needs a bit of a tweak to apply to safety planning, as in the business world, this section is all about what could make an idea profitable or whether there is a new technology or technique we could try. However, it is still a useful section for safety planning when developing a risk assessment and method statement, but it potentially more weighted towards the method element of the exercise. Maybe when the event ran in the past, there was mention that next year you should consider a larger marquee, or perhaps you have seen some great new technology that you could implement into the event that would help prevent risks from growing or help with incident response. It all goes in this section.
- Threats: When using this tool for H&S assessment, you may occasionally find that some factors can be categorised as a weakness or a threat. In the business world, these threats are generally competitors or economic factors. However in the event world, this threat might be things like security risk or the threat of grass fire if it’s been a particularly dry or warm period. The difference with a weakness and threat is that a threat is usually something that could happen whereas a weakness is generally something that will happen and with negative consequences to the operation if not rectified.
- HAZID (Hazard Identification): This structured brainstorming technique gets your team thinking creatively about potential hazards in each event element. It’s like having a gremlin-hunting think tank working for you! Of course, you can do this a solo exercise, and while this has a fancy name, it literally is just the process of going “we are going to do this, but what could go wrong” and then making a note of them. However, having a more structured approach to this technique can be very useful especially if you want to consult with other specialists in the planning organisation. Perhaps you go through a HAZID exercise with your lighting team. They’ll probably state potential risks that you didn’t even know existed, once you are aware of them you can then conduct further research to understand them, their likelihood, impact and of course what you can do to mitigate them. Chances are, your lighting crew have probably negotiated a similar issue before, so don’t devalue the process of talking to your colleagues. The other advantage of HAZID exercises is that by involving your key staff in the safety planning and risk assessment process, it promotes a stronger safety culture and builds a good working relationship between those responsible for the safety of the event and those operating it. Something safety professionals often struggle with, as they are met with animosity.
- FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis): This method systematically analyses how potential failures in equipment, processes, or systems could impact your event. Think of it as stress-testing your event plan for maximum resilience. This is usually a later cycle exercise and helps you to identify and devise potential mitigation strategies as well as identifying potential weak points and issues in your plans. The police service and local authorities love to do this sort of stuff, normally coining it a “table-top” exercise. They’ll actually run a mock incident around a table and have various people making the decisions on behalf of their relevant area of business to see what happens and how people might react. It can be quite an arduous process, but is truly unbeatable when it comes to ringing the absolute last drops of risk factors out of your risk assessments and safety plans. For instance, in the case of a event plan, one of your considered failure modes could be power outage. Now what could this impact? Perhaps it’s an event over a large footprint and a total power outage will knock out your radio repeaters. This could have dire effects in co ordinating not only business as usual, but also any emergency response plans. However, now you have identified this, perhaps you decide to ensure that the radio repeaters have backup battery systems. At least then if there is a power outage, emergency protocols can still be organised, even if you don’t have power for the other business as usual functions of the event.
DIY vs. Expert Help: When to Call in the Medirek Cavalry
Now, here’s the honest truth: creating a truly comprehensive and effective RAMS can be time-consuming and complex. It requires knowledge of event safety regulations, experience in identifying hazards, and the ability to objectively assess their severity. While the internet offers DIY templates, navigating the nuances and ensuring compliance can be tricky, and it’s unfortunately that aspect that leads to tick box, generalised risk assessments that aren’t really fit for purpose.
Medirek: Your Event Safety Sidekick
That’s where MediRek Event Safety Consultancy comes in.
Our team of seasoned experts has the knowledge, experience, and tools to create watertight Risk Assessment and Method Statements that meet all legal requirements and give you peace of mind. We’ll:
- Work closely with you to understand your event’s unique needs and context, after all, one side doesn’t fit all!
- Identify all potential risks, big and small, using our extensive expertise and advanced techniques like SWOT, HAZID, and FMEA where appropriate.
- Objectively assess the likelihood and severity of each risk, ensuring you can prioritise effectively.
- Develop clear and actionable mitigation strategies for each risk, turning “what-ifs” into concrete plans.
- Provide you with a documented RAMS that meet all legal requirements and serves as a roadmap for a safe and successful event.
Don’t let RAMS become a roadblock to your event’s success. Partner with Medirek and enjoy the benefits of:
- Reduced stress and workload: Focus on the creative aspects of your event while we handle the safety side.
- Peace of mind: Knowing your event is compliant and prepared for any potential gremlins.
- Time savings: Get a professional RAMS done quickly and efficiently, freeing up your time for other tasks.
- Enhanced reputation: Show your attendees and stakeholders that you take safety seriously.
Ready to say goodbye to event planning panic? Contact Medirek today for a free consultation and let’s make your event a resounding success story, minus the risk-induced chills!
Remember, a safe event is a happy event, and MediRek is here to help you achieve both!
P.S. Don’t forget to check out our website for free downloadable resources and valuable event safety tips. We’re here to be your partner in creating unforgettable events, the safe and stress-free way!
