Workshop Summary: This highly interactive workshop is designed to equip event professionals with the essential knowledge and skills to navigate the complex world of severe weather impacts on live event operations. From lightning monitoring to duty of care and long-term impacts to critical infrastructure, this workshop will empower participants to enhance their existing weather safety operations and plan for long-term weather risk reduction. Participants will be guided by subject-matter experts in meteorology, law, and safety in open discussion with the goal of sharing best practices and improving event safety.
Workshop Topics:
Severe Weather Science: Grasping the science behind severe weather isn't just academic; it's the bedrock for protecting lives at outdoor events, empowering event managers to decode the sky's most powerful threats. This workshop will cover essential severe weather science to enable participants to better assess hazards in the forecast.
Event Weather Monitoring: Event managers must carefully evaluate the diverse array of weather support services available to them, ranging from governmental resources like the National Weather Service (NWS) to private meteorological firms. This workshop will explain the types of applications, services, and physical tools available from the weather enterprise to support their weather safety operations.
Climate Change Impacts: Climate change presents significant challenges for live events operations through short-term influence on weather and long-term damage to critical infrastructure. This workshop will guide participants through the expected impacts of climate change on the live event industry alongside potential solutions.
Crowd Management: Effective crowd management for live events carries immense responsibility, especially when confronting dynamic weather threats. This workshop will explore essential strategies and proactive measures needed to anticipate, assess, and expertly guide crowd flow and safety during weather-related incidents.
Duty of Care: Understanding the critical concept of duty of care in live event management reveals the legal and ethical responsibilities organizers bear to keep guests safe. This workshop discusses how duty of care applies to weather safety and the responsibility that event managers have to keep guests safe.
Agenda:
8:00-8:30 Severe Weather Safety/Introductions
8:30-9:45 Meteorology for Event Safety Professionals Weather Science
9:45-10:00 Break
10:00-10:45 Weather Monitoring, Support, and Protection Systems
10:45-12:00 Protecting against Long-term Weather Impacts
12:00-12:30 Lunch
12:30- 1:30 Crowd Management
1:30 1:45 Break
1:45 3:00 Duty of Care
3:00 5:00 Case Study Activity & Closing