Stadium Safety: Community-Sourced Insights at Large Events

Stadium Safety: Community-Sourced Insights at Large Events
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Modern stadiums, arenas, and convention centers are massive revenue generators that attract hundreds of thousands of patrons every year. Hosting everything from sporting events to concerts and trade shows, these facilities must remain consistently aware of security threats such as property damage, terrorism, and worker or patron injury so that they maintain venue safety and keep customers and sponsors returning. Here, we present a case study from a Vector LiveSafe sports and entertainment client and offer a free downloadable guide, Stadium Safety: Community-Sourced Insights at Large Events.

Case Study: Large Arena

To address these concerns, the Security and Operations Team at one of the largest arenas in the United States deployed the Vector LiveSafe platform. Each year, this arena hosts 150-200 events with 1.5-2.0 million total guests. The head of security and operations at this arena found that LiveSafe significantly improved incident awareness.

“I have people moving about all the time. I’m in an active downtown community. Even with the number of staff that I have, I don’t have an ability to have eyes everywhere,” the security official said. “By having a crowdsourced risk management tool, or people-sourced risk management tool such as LiveSafe, it allows me to have a force multiplier that goes far beyond what I’m able to provide with just my full-time security staff.”

Arena and event venues can also leverage the LiveSafe Platform to improve their emergency response and incident documentation.

“One of the big challenges I would have is trying to figure out what happened after it happened,” this official said. “The event ended at 11:00 or 11:30 at night, but I’d still be interviewing staff until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning so that we had sufficient information to send to the insurance companies.”

Modern Mobile Reporting vs. Traditional Tip Lines

Traditional methods of engaging the workforce or attendees at a large arena or event complex are simply not as effective as a mobile app with guided reporting capabilities and automated routing. Although every major league stadium is required to have a tip line in place for attendees to call if they see something suspicious, the reality is that most fans don’t engage with this method of communication.

This Security and Operations leader, for example, said he averaged one tip line call every 15 events, and for the reports that do come in through the tip line, valuable time can be lost.

“The simple answer is when guests see that [tip line information] scroll across in the messaging at the beginning or prior to coming to the game, they aren’t exactly storing that number in their telephone,” he said.

“As a result, if there are any complaints that happened during the game, they’re coming through the main switchboard [rather than the tip line], which means there’s a tremendous delay between the time that the incident takes place and the response because it has to go through five or six different layers before it hits anyone who’s able to act upon it.”

Using Mobile Risk Reporting in Insurance Claims

By leveraging a mobile risk intelligence and safety communications platform like Vector’s LiveSafe platform, this arena’s security team not only improved their response time, but also launched mitigation and recovery efforts that prevent costly insurance claims.

“I already have documentation started on what the incident was, and I have people responding to the incident in real-time. What that often did for me was not just prevent the whole load of information I had to investigate until 3:00 in the morning, but I was able to mitigate the incident itself at that time and provide a recovery that didn’t result in an insurance claim afterwards,” he said.

“Even though we have insurance, each time an incident takes place, before we can activate the insurance, we’re at least $10,000 out of our pocket on each of those incidents,” the official explained. “Over the course of the year, if I have 50 or 100 valid claims, I’m still stroking a lot of checks before I ever get to where insurance is taking over.”

LiveSafe not only facilitates improved incident reporting and security response, but can help organizations prevent incident escalation and avoid the time and cost associated with filing insurance claims.

The Value of Risk Intelligence at Large Venues

By developing an effective prevention strategy and deploying an intuitive, easily accessible risk management platform such as the LiveSafe platform, stadiums can prevent immediate and long-lasting damage to the brand, reputation, and future revenue of the stadium owner, sponsors, and visiting teams and performers.

LiveSafe features include anonymous tip submission, two-way communication between app users and security teams, and customizable resources that can be accessed with or without internet connection. This can help stadium patrons and employees easily report concerns so that they can be quickly and appropriately addressed before they escalate into crises.

To learn more about risk reporting at stadiums and large venues, download our free guide, Stadium Safety: Community-Sourced Insights at Large Events. Visit the LiveSafe website to learn more about implementing risk intelligence into your organization’s prevention strategy.

ALEXANDRA BRUNJES

Alexandra Brunjes has a B.S. in Neurobiology from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. with minors in Creative Writing and French. She is a published journalist and experienced health and science writer. Her expertise includes risk intelligence, healthcare and neuroscience, and technology.

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