You’ve secured a venue, paid the caterer, and planned the entertainment for your big event. Now, the one big question you and your event team members need to ask yourselves is, “What could go wrong?”
Hopefully, your event goes off without a hitch. But in reality, glitches happen, from technical problems and food poisoning to medical emergencies and crowd-control matters.
The good news is you can get ahead of potential issues, throw a successful event, and navigate any challenges. With our event risk management strategies below, you’ll have a backup plan in case of unforeseen problems — and peace of mind in knowing you’re ready for any hiccups that occur.
Event Risk Management Explained
Contingency planning might be the last thing on event organizers’ to-do lists amid the excitement of crafting an event program. However, prioritizing risk management for events is essential to mitigate legal and financial risk factors. Here’s a brief overview of how event risk management works and why planning for the unexpected is worth it.
How Risk Management Works
The event risk management process includes an event risk assessment detailing the risks, action plans, and protocols for event staff. This process allows event planners to identify potential issues, take proactive steps to avoid calamities, and spring into action when things go sideways.
Instead of leaving proceedings to chance on the event day, risk management plans outline the steps for handling curveballs. It also helps prepare you and your team for a fun, safe event — come what may.
Benefits of Risk Management for Events
When you’ve put your heart and soul into planning for an event, you deserve to enjoy the big day instead of stressing over possible problems. Check out some of the benefits of risk management in event planning:
- Resting easier: No event planner ever totally relaxes in the throes of event planning, but effective event risk management can put your mind at ease.
- Protecting your organization’s reputation: Consider event risks examples, such as the doomed-before-it-began XO Musical Festival involving a total event cancellation or the TomorrowWorld electronic dance music event squashed by severe weather. Risk management can help your event go viral for all the right reasons — like delicious food, exceptional entertainment, or engaging speakers — not because it wound up on the evening news.
- Building relationships: Vendors, sponsors, and attendees will feel more confident doing business with your organization if you have a solid risk management plan in place.
- Avoiding financial and legal hassles: It’s not just your reputation on the line in event planning. Events gone awry can bankrupt organizations and result in legal action. For example, the disastrous Fyre Fest resulted in a class-action settlement of approximately $7,200 per ticket holder, as well as prison time for event organizer Billy McFarland.
5 Steps To Create an Event Risk Management Plan
1. Identify Potential Risks and Consequences
Event risk management planning doesn’t happen in a silo. To identify all potential risks and their consequences, consider event plans from every angle — from food preparation to cancellation policies.
Gather insights from everyone involved with your event, from florists and caterers to venue owners and performers. Each party has unique knowledge that can help uncover risks you haven’t considered in each aspect of event planning.
We also recommend conducting an event SWOT Analysis — short for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats — for insights into potential event risk factors. This analysis can help you identify your assets, such as brand reputation, attendee loyalty, sponsorships, and employee talents. It also helps highlight possible external issues like natural disasters, supply chain problems, and local regulations.
2. Assign Probability and Impact Scores
Assigning probability and impact scores helps you assess the likelihood of risks actually happening and their potential impact on your event.
Here’s an example of how to assign probability and impact scores:
- Establish a scale of one to 10, where 10 represents the highest probability of a risk materializing.
- Assign a score to each risk you’ve identified.
- For each risk, estimate the impact on your event if the risk occurs, using a similar scale of one to 10 for low to high impact.
This process allows you to prioritize your event risk management efforts, assigning additional resources to address the risks with the highest probability and impact scores. Meanwhile, risks with low scores — while still significant in event risk management — may require fewer contingency plans.
3. Build a Risk Assessment Document With Your Findings
Using your findings from steps one and two, organize the information in a document detailing your risk assessment. This document will get everyone on the same page regarding risk management and provide a roadmap to address each risk in step four.
You’ll want to be sure to collect insights from all key event stakeholders; details on each risk, with their probability and impact scores; and the results of your SWOT analysis describing your existing risk mitigation measures and gaps in risk management.
4. Create Contingency Plans and Mitigation Strategies
Contingency plans let you map out the steps to take in case risks come to pass. Mitigation strategies minimize the likelihood of them occurring and the severity of the impact in case they do.
Here’s how to plan your mitigation strategies:
- Identify risk management solutions: Brainstorm ways to address each risk. There are no bad ideas here; chat it up with your event team and get creative!
- Consider resources: Time, money, and human resources are all factors to consider. For example, if you’ve identified low attendance as a risk factor but you lack a marketing team, consider ways to promote your event that don’t involve hiring additional staff.
- Delegate: Decide which aspects of risk management your team can handle and which ones you’ll need to outsource — whether to vendors, contractors, or technology tools like event management software.
If you get your mitigation strategies right, there’s less of a chance you’ll need contingency plans — pretty cool, right? However, it’s important to plan for each risk as though it could happen, despite your best mitigation strategies. Don’t rush this process; walk through each item on your list of risks to plan appropriately.
5. Train Your Staff To Follow Your Emergency Action Plan
The final step is getting your event team up to speed. It may sound daunting to train your staff on emergency action plans, but not to worry — we’ve got your back.
Here’s what to do:
- Create documentation: Formalize the contingency plans and mitigation strategies from step four as official company literature that employees and contractors must read, sign, and learn.
- Keep it simple and clear: Frame it as actionable, “if this, then that” strategies that are easy to understand. Outline each step to take in response to various emergencies.
- Train event staff: Combine in-person and online learning to discuss risk management and emergency response procedures and questions. Run through scenarios relevant to different team members.
- Get vendors involved: Share best practices for risk management with vendors, invite their collaboration, and build risk management into vendor contracts to ensure compliance.
- Update documentation periodically: Review your emergency action plan at pivotal points like after an event ends, as well as at the start of your event season or on some other annual schedule. Make any needed updates in response to evolving problems.
What Are Some Primary Risks Every Venue Should Consider?
No event is immune to risks, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take control and avoid common pitfalls. Below are some of the major risks all event planners should consider, along with solutions to mitigate the risks:
- Natural disasters such as wildfires, floods, and storms: Consider planning events in areas less prone to weather events, moving events indoors, or relocating venues to safer spots.
- Weather hazards like rain, snow, or extreme heat: Scout out indoor locations that match the vibe and aesthetic of your event.
- Security risks like unauthorized entry, unruly crowds, and threats of violence: Search bags at entry, implement event ticketing and wristbands, and hire security personnel to help curb risks.
- Technical problems: From equipment failures to power outages, technical issues can bring events to a crashing halt. Have a backup plan in case of technical snafus so your guests don’t storm out of your event unhappy.
- Catering risks: Foodborne illnesses, allergic reactions, over-serving of alcohol, or serving alcohol to minors are all concerns. Ensure you have properly-licensed vendors, safe food-handling procedures, and identity checks for patrons to avoid problems.
- Financial risks: Issues with payment processing, cancellations, low attendance, going over budget, and other financial risks are prevalent at events. Events.com’s all-in-one solutions can help you stay on budget, track your expenditures, and get a bird’s-eye view of ticket sales so you can pivot quickly when needed.
- Liability issues: Slips and falls, injuries, and other on-premises issues can lead to legal claims. Secure proper insurance coverage addressing general liability and other risk exposures.
Reduce Human Error in Event Management With Events.com
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, as the saying goes — unless you’ve taken steps to mitigate risks for your event. You can avoid or lessen the blow of unforeseen circumstances by identifying the biggest threats, planning for emergencies, and implementing risk management at all stages of event planning.
If you’re ready to uplevel your risk management and eliminate the headache of human error as part of event risk management, Events.com is here to help. Our comprehensive event management platform streamlines the entire process, from risk assessment to contingency planning, making it easier to plan safe, successful events.
Take the first step toward stress-free event organizing by scheduling a demo today.
