Event organiser health and safety responsibilities are the part of a brief nobody reads until something goes wrong. Most organisers we work with assume that once they have booked a competent audio visual (AV) supplier, the safety of what that supplier builds becomes the supplier’s problem. It is a reasonable assumption and it is wrong. Booking a contractor does not move a legal duty off you. Your duty stays where it is, the contractor picks up its own, the venue already had one, and the law then requires all of you to talk to each other.
In short
Duties at an event overlap on purpose, and they do not transfer. You hold a duty for the way your event as a whole is run. The venue holds one for the building and the ways in and out of it. Every contractor holds one for its own work and for anyone that work affects. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is explicit that none of this makes you responsible for a supplier’s technical work. It makes you responsible for how the pieces fit together.
Where event organiser health and safety responsibilities sit
The wording that puts the duty on you is short. Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 puts a duty on every employer to run its undertaking so that, so far as is reasonably practicable, people who are not its employees are not exposed to risks to their health or safety.
Your undertaking is the event. The people who are not your employees are the audience, the venue’s staff and the crew of every contractor on site.
The HSE is careful about what this does not mean. Its guidance on managing an event states that it does not make you responsible for all the individual technical work carried out by third parties. What you owe is the overall shape: a safe phased programme of work, built from the contractors’ risk assessments and shared with everyone who needs it.
The venue’s duty is about the building
Venues are usually treated as a neutral space you book. In law they are a duty holder. Section 4 of the same Act puts a duty on each person who has, to any extent, control of premises to take such measures as it is reasonable for a person in that position to take to ensure that the premises, the means of access and egress, meaning the ways in and out, and any plant provided for use there are safe.
“To any extent” matters, because control can be partial and shared. In practice the venue’s duty covers what was there before you arrived: the loading door and the goods lift, the floor loading, the installed power and the rigging points overhead. That is why what a venue can tell you about its rigging points matters more than what the ceiling looks like. What the duty does not cover is the structure you bring in and build inside it.
What a contractor’s paperwork covers
Every supplier on your event carries two duties of its own. One is to its own people, under section 2 of the Act: the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of its own employees. The other is the same section 3 duty you hold, pointed at everyone that supplier’s work affects.
That is what a risk assessment and method statement (RAMS) is. It describes one supplier’s work and how that supplier controls the risks in it. A folder of them is not a safety plan for your event. Your job is to know they exist, to know they describe the job actually being done, and to see that separate ones do not contradict each other.
The duty to co-ordinate
There is a third duty, and it is the one that catches people out. Regulation 11 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 says that where two or more employers share a workplace, each must co-operate with the others so far as is necessary to let them comply, co-ordinate their own measures taking account of the nature of their activities, and tell the others about the risks their work creates.
A hotel ballroom at seven in the morning is a shared workplace. The venue’s staff are in it, along with the AV crew and whoever is building the set. Each of those employers owes the others information, and somebody has to make that happen. That somebody is you.
This is the practical argument for keeping the number of employers on site down. Our position is that splitting audio, lighting, video and staging across separate suppliers moves the co-ordination work onto the organiser, and regulation 11 is why that is more than an inconvenience. We supply audio, video, lighting, rigging and staging from one source, which takes several of those relationships off your list before the event starts.
Where the duties meet is where it goes wrong
Incidents at events rarely happen in the middle of somebody’s clearly owned work. They happen at the joins. The get-in, meaning the window when equipment can be brought into the building, is one: two crews arrive at a shared dock with one goods lift between them. Sign-off is another, because a stage is complete when a competent person says it is, and if nobody was appointed to say it the question sits open.
Neither of those is a gap in the law. They are gaps in the programme, and the programme is yours. The HSE’s own list of what your arrangements should include is short: control the risks, ensure co-operation and proper co-ordination of work activities, check competence, then monitor and review.
Proportionate, not a paper exercise
Because the duty is qualified by what is reasonably practicable, it scales. A sixty-seat seminar in a hotel suite does not need a festival’s documents. The trade’s own reference, if you want to read further, is The Purple Guide to Health, Safety and Welfare at Music and Other Events, produced by the Events Industry Forum.
The honest test is simpler than any document. Describe out loud, in order, what happens on build day and who is doing each part. If you can do that, you are meeting the duty. If you cannot, no amount of collected paperwork stands in for it.
Frequently asked questions
What are an event organiser’s health and safety responsibilities?
You are responsible for the way your event as a whole is run, not for the technical work of each supplier. That means arrangements to control risks, making sure everyone on site co-operates and is properly co-ordinated, passing on relevant information, and checking the people you engage are competent. The duty scales with the event.
Does booking an AV supplier transfer the responsibility to them?
No. A contractor takes on duties of its own, to its employees and to anyone its work affects, but engaging one does not remove your duty for the event. You can engage others to help you meet it, a production manager being the obvious example, provided you check that the people they engage on your behalf are competent.
What is the venue responsible for?
Broadly, the building and what was already in it. Anyone with control of premises, to any extent, has to take reasonable measures to see that the premises, the ways in and out available for use, and any equipment provided for use there are safe. That covers access, floors, installed power and the rigging points overhead, but not what you bring in.
Sources
- legislation.gov.uk · Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 3
- legislation.gov.uk · Act 1974, section 4
- legislation.gov.uk · Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 11
- Health and Safety Executive · Managing an event
- Events Industry Forum · The Purple Guide
If you are planning a conference or a run of corporate events and you are not certain where the joins are, we are happy to walk through the build with you and say plainly what we would own and what would stay with you or the venue. You can reach us through the contact page or by email at hire@eventproductiongroup.co.uk.
