With travel, a chock-full agenda and being surrounded by others, it is inevitable that someone is going to get sick during your event. Attendees work hard and play hard when at a meeting, conference or event. This can drain their immune system. Minimize the impact with these quick tips:

• Think of illness and accidents in the site selection phase. Items to consider include access to hospitals or an on-site physician and diseases/viruses impacting the area.
• As part of the registration process, make emergency contact details a requirement. Collect the name, phone number, alternate phone number and email of their designated contact. You should also collect if they need an ADA-compliant room or have any dietary health requirements.
• During the pre-meeting stage, include communication to attendees reminding them to bring any prescription or over-the-counter medications with them. If the meeting is abroad, make sure attendees understand how to legally travel with medications. You should also have attendees check into medical insurance for travel overseas.
• Before you arrive on-site, prepare or purchase a first aid kit.
• It is best practice to become CPR-Heimlich Maneuver-AED certified in case of an emergency situation needing immediate response.
• Try to incorporate some health/wellness initiatives into your meeting or event to minimize the chance of illness. If possible, incorporate immunity-boosting foods into the menu. A juice bar is camouflaged as a trendy, in-the-moment perk, while secretly providing sickness-fighting vitamins.
• When selecting activities, keep your attendees in mind and avoid any activities that have a high-risk for injury or accidents. Work with your DMC or meeting planner to obtain necessary documentation on the activity and its safety level.
• As part of your on-site contact list, include any on-site or on-call medical personnel, addresses and directions to the nearest hospitals and emergency phone numbers. Also locate on-site first aid relief and defibrillators. Include clear instructions on what to do/where to go should an emergency situation arise.
• If after all of this, you still face a medical situation, remember you are the attendee’s friendly face. Do what you can to support them through the illness or injury and get them the medical attention they need.

Sources:

The 3 “A”s of Risk Management

Legal Briefs: 6 Ways to Protect Your Meetings

5 Steps to Managing Meetings Risk

Meetings and events are crucial to the growth of the US economy contributing $446 billion to GDP in 2016. Business services and the insurance company contributed the most to this figure followed by food & beverage, hotel & lodging and travel & tourism. Preparing for a hospitality event not only involves logistics such as equipment, food & drinks and other paraphernalia. Event security is an important part of any gathering and it is through careful planning and preparation that its success is guaranteed.

An Overview of the Event is Key to Ensure its Security

Event security is attained if there is full control of the meeting. This means that organizers must have an accurate scenario of the entire event in all its stages from design to execution. One of the most important activities in planning and managing security is site inspection. Scanning the venue for possible threats, vulnerabilities and strengths can help in the preparation of a security plan. Strategic check-in spots, emergency exits, assembly points and parking can be defined by doing an in-depth tour of the event premises.

Furthermore, information on how the venue handles emergencies as well as a history of its past response to crises, injuries or deaths assist in designing an appropriate security strategy. In short, ongoing risk assessments in event security ensure the safety of participants and the venue, according to an Event Risk Assessment Guide published by the University of Western Australia.

Event Security Blueprint

Creating a team and sub-teams will ensure that there is someone responsible for specific tasks whether it is to coordinate with the lead agency organizing the event or to identify specific risks and threats. Preparing an organizational chart will also make sure that everyone knows with whom to communicate regarding security. The org chart can become the lifeline of the event especially for new hires and employees (Pingboard.com).

A significant threat that should not be overlooked is cyberattacks. Every 39 seconds, a hacker strikes affecting the lives of 1 in 3 Americans according to the Clarke School study at the University of Maryland. The average cost of a data breach is expected to climb to $150 million by 2020 based on a Juniper Research. A group can easily infiltrate the on-site information systems of the event. The system will contain data on communications, security plans, access areas, surveillance, utilities, automated locking mechanisms and other information technology. If information gets into the wrong hands, it can compromise the safety of participants & organizers or inflict damage to property.

The security of meetings and events is dependent on how well organizers plan and review existing and potential risks. Full control of the site and its vulnerabilities also guarantee that the appropriate responses are generated should emergencies or attacks occur. Only then can an event proceed smoothly with minimal disruptions.

This article is part of a series, identifying an area of risk and providing steps on how to minimize the threats these risks pose.

Alcohol and Recreational Marijuana

The only way to remove potential liquor liability from your event is to not serve alcohol to begin with. But let’s be honest. Most of the time, this isn’t an option. So how do you reduce the chance of risk related to alcohol? Here are some steps to follow for alcohol related risk management:

1. Protect yourself in the contract: During the very initial stages of planning your event you can limit your vulnerability to risk by including certain clauses in the contract with your hotel, event facility or anywhere else alcohol will be served. The most important clause to include is an indemnification clause. This clause should be included in all contracts, regardless of whether there will be alcohol served. You can also add that servers should be trained in safe alcohol service, the hotel will adhere to all federal and state laws regarding the sale of alcohol and bartenders/servers are not to serve attendees who appear to be intoxicated.
2. Have proper insurance: Before purchasing a liquor-liability insurance policy, review your company’s general liability policy. If the policy does not cover events where alcohol is served, look into a liquor-liability policy. This won’t completely eliminate your liability, but it will cover some situations. Lastly, confirm your venue/vendors are properly insured and licensed.
3. Develop policies and guidelines: Be proactive about expectations on alcohol consumption at events. Let attendees know ahead of time to have fun at the event, but also to drink and behave responsibly. If someone does get out of control, have guidelines already in place on how to handle intoxicated guests. You can set these guidelines not only for your on-site team, but also with the servers/bartenders. If possible, give a third-party (like your catering manager) authority over the event. If someone has obviously had too much to drink, you can notify this designated individual to handle the situation, always with tact. This can relieve you from resistance from the attendee as well as potentially awkward or embarrassing scenarios if a VIP or client is involved.
4. Provide a safe environment: The best way to discourage overindulgence and protect yourself from risk is to create an atmosphere that promotes responsibility and safety. Never offer alcohol during activities involving snow, water or transportation (think jet skiing). For other events, prevent your guests from becoming intoxicated by setting it up in way that does not promote overconsumption.

A few tips are:

• Offer drink tickets instead of an open bar.
• Offer non-alcoholic beverages. Variety and creativity will be more attractive than basic sodas.
• Always serve food when alcohol is served. Eating slows down the absorption of alcohol. Limit salty foods; they make people thirstier.
• Close your bar before the end of the event. This will give attendees the chance to sober up.
• Station the bar in a location that isn’t constantly in guests’ paths.
• Ensure bartenders are using jiggers to consistently measure their pours.
• Keep drinks at the bar. If you have servers circulating with drinks or refilling glasses, many people will accept even if they weren’t planning on having more.
• Even with all these measures in place, there is still the chance someone over indulges. Make sure you have transportation available for those unfit to get themselves home or back to their hotel room. This could be a bus, or be as simple as having taxis available or walking them up to their room.

The above steps should give you a good defense against liquor liability. But there is another culprit for liability cropping up across the nation, recreational marijuana. Although it is only legal in eight U.S. states so far (Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Washington, D.C.), it is important to consider the implications this substance has to your meetings.

The best defense is to develop a policy regarding pot use at your events. If your company’s overall policy doesn’t touch on this subject, be sure to have something in place. A strong policy will not only protect you during events held in states where it has been legalized, but also in states where it is still illegal. Sooner or later, you will meet in a state where weed has become decriminalized, and chances are, you will have at least one participant who might give it a try. Just like with any type of risk management, think of all possible outcomes and have a plan in place for how you will react.

Sources:
MeetingsNet: Seven Tips to Limit Liquor Liability
Strategic Meetings Management Consulting: Alcohol Risk Management
MeetingsNet: Stirring the Pot: What Planners Need to Know About Marijuana Liability
MeetingsNet: 5 Weird Ways Legal Marijuana Could Affect Your Events
Business Insider: Here’s where you can legally smoke weed now