The big weekend is fast approaching – only 9 days til Good Friday at the time of writing – and your risk management planning should be well underway.
Easter weekend could be huge for your venue, with more customers staying longer and spending more money. It could bring about some welcome relief on your bottom line.
But only if you remain claim free.
A claim could erase all the hard work you’ve put in over the Easter period and in the worst cases, jeopardise the entire future of your venue.
As we said at the top of this article, your risk management planning should already be in place, but here are a few reminders to make sure that you’ve thought of everything.
Responsibility
It’s important to ensure that each area of your risk management is assigned to a qualified or trained individual. If you have a large venue, it’s impossible for one person to do all the relevant checks on all areas. Instead, you should ensure that different tasks are assigned to different people. Each person should have an area or aspect that they’re responsible for, and that responsibility should include checks and recording.
NDML partners with risk management software, isitchecked, which helps venues keep a track of their checks by allowing users to scan a unique code when they’ve checked a certain area or zone.
If you’d like to know more about isitchecked, you can read a blog we wrote about it, here.
Noise
Risk management isn’t a case of preventing the obvious claims; you have to think outside the box to ensure that you’re not hit with a claim.
Take noise for example. Back in June, we wrote a blog about the Employers Liability court case between the Royal Opera House and Goldsheider, where the claimant successfully argued that his hearing had been damaged by a particularly thunderous rehearsal of the Ring Cycle by Wagner. The court said that the venue (his employer) had failed in their duty to provide him with appropriate protective gear for his ears which could have prevented long-term hearing loss.
Most venues reading this article will play music at a loud volume. Over Easter weekend, when you’re busier and need staff to work longer hours and double shifts, it’s vital that you protect their hearing. Ear guards, shift rotation, regular breaks – ensure that you put a process in place that reduces the time that any one person is subjected to loud noise.
Contractors
With it being a busy weekend, many of our venues are planning on bringing in external contractors in to help them with catering and entertainment. These contractors bring with them new and unusual risks for your venue.
From an insurance point of view, each contractor should have their own insurance policies and it’s important that you check their documentation before allowing them to work on site.
From a risk management view point, it’s important to analyse how a contractor will affect the working space around them. Will they bring with them heavy or dangerous equipment? Will they need to use long electrical wires? Where will they need to be positioned in the venue and could they potentially disrupt your evacuation policies.
As always, if you need any help with this kind of evaluation, you can call NDML today.
Drunkeness
Finally, for this article anyway, we’ll look at drunkenness. Hopefully, your weekend will go swimmingly and your customers will spend lots of money at your bar. Please remember however, that while drunkenness is expected, it is illegal for bar staff to purposely supply alcohol to anyone who is obviously drunk or disorderly.
In the best case scenario, your club will get a telling off and a fine. In the worst cases, you could have your license investigated.
Like anything in risk management, proactivity in this area is far better than reaction. Make your stance on alcohol consumption clear from the off. Make sure that staff are aware of the rules and that security is on hand to remove anyone who is showing signs of being disorderly.
If you’re concerned that you haven’t considered every risk management and legislative possibility, you can contact NDML today. Our friendly staff will talk you through your obligations and help to ensure that your bank holiday runs smoothly.
