Health & Safety: Summer Social

Background

June 2022 saw the return of Summer Social, a mass participation sport and music festival held at Richmond Athlete’s Ground and the Old Deer Park. The event is a multi-purpose festival, taken over by 8000 attendees, all with an aim to enjoy the tournaments and music the festival has to offer. 2022 also saw the return of the F45 Playoff, seeing teams from all over the UK competing. We Are The Fair, whom are in their 5th year of working with the Summer Social team, requested Health and Safety services from OPS, including pre-event documentation, supplier auditing and on-site safety.

Challenges

• The main egress route took customers through a small event car park, and so it was therefore vital that vehicles were prevented from moving during egress to avoid any vehicle/pedestrian conflict. This was effectively managed by security teams, who deployed additional staff and requested the presence of the Safety Advisor during peak ingress.

• Ensuring the complete collation and auditing of supplier and contractor H&S documentation by the Safety Advisor, prior to arrival in site. Some suppliers and contractors were obtained with little time remaining, however, the Safety Advisor was able to gather and audit all their RAMS and insurances prior to the commencement of work.

• During the time of the event build, the temperature was reaching significantly high temperatures. Staff welfare was at the forefront of the operations, which meant the Safety Advisor needed to implement certain measures to allow the build to continue. Staff were advised to take frequent breaks, adequate drinking water was made available from a cooler throughout, and medical provision was accessible should a member of staff suffer from heat stoke/exhaustion.

• The event site is split into 2, Richmond Athlete’s Ground and Old Deer Park, this meant that the OPS team had to manage operations, such as crowd management, in addition to safety, across 2 sites simultaneously.

• Safely completing full de-rig of the site within a 2 day deadline.

Delivery

• H&S Documentation Review

• Operations and Safety Management

• Supplier Auditing

• On-Site Safety

Results

• Delivery of an enjoyable and successful day

• Up to 5000 people attending and participating in the event

• A safe and incident free egress

• A very positive audience experience overall