Risk Management, Safety, and Accessibility
Systematic risk management
Risk management follows a cycle: identify hazards, assess likelihood and impact, control, monitor, and review. A risk register records each risk, its owner, rating, mitigation, and trigger for escalation. Controls follow a hierarchy - eliminate, substitute, engineer, administrate, then personal protective equipment - and the same logic applies to event risks such as crowd density, weather, supplier failure, or reputational damage. Exam traps include treating insurance as a control (it transfers financial consequence, it does not prevent harm) and confusing likelihood with impact when rating risks.
Safety and legal duties
Organisers owe duties of care to attendees, staff, contractors, and the public. Key tools are capacity limits, crowd management plans, emergency procedures with clearly briefed marshals, first-aid provision, food safety controls, and contractor competence checks. Where alcohol is served, licensing conditions and responsible-service practices apply. Data protection and privacy obligations also sit in this domain: collect only what is needed, secure it, and be clear about use.
Accessibility and inclusion
Accessibility should be designed in, not retrofitted: step-free routes, accessible toilets, seating with sightlines, hearing loops, captioning, sign-language provision, readable materials, dietary and quiet-space options, and an accessible registration process. Ask attendees about needs at registration and provide a contact for adjustments. A frequent trap is treating accessibility as only physical mobility; cognitive, sensory, and language needs matter too.
Worked example
Rule of thumb: rate each risk as likelihood × impact on a simple scale, and require a documented control and named owner for anything rated high. If a risk is high and uncontrolled, the correct answer is usually to change the plan, not to accept it and rely on insurance.