CONCLUSIONS

I feel that we should take the opportunity to close this event with some form of conclusion. The decision to hold this seminar was triggered by the events of the summer of 2011. The editor of one of the prominent festival websites took me to task for ‘scare mongering’. His bold statement was that UK events are safe and that what happened in the USA, in Belgium and in Brazil would not happen here. My response is simple. I do not want to be the one to phone the family of someone who doesn’t go home. I don’t want to be the one who could have done more, before the event. I don’t want to be complacent. After the events of last summer, my opinion is that if we did not consider our working practices and the effectiveness of the signing off procedures, it would be.

Is there anyone in the room who thinks that the regulations we have now are too severe and should be relaxed?

Is there anyone in the room who doesn’t believe that more rigorous control of portable structure installations would be a good thing?

I put it to the meeting that more complete and easier to understand structural  documentation is not only achievable, but desirable.

Can we make a resolution;
That this gathering of industry professionals believe that more can be done to promote the safe installation of structures. We believe that clearer documentation should be devised. We urge the events industry to work towards this.

If this resolution is passed by the meeting I will circulate the resolution to the HSE and to various industry bodies such as the PSA, MUTA, the Association Of European Festival Organisers and the Association of Building Control Officers. Plus more. Perhaps we can start something.

To wind things up, I want to thank my colleagues at Special Structures Lab for their help in staging this event. I want to thank Alan White, Simon James, Steven Corfield-Moore, Gavin Bye and my co host Professor Alexander Pavic for their informed presentations.

Finally, I wish to thank each and every one of you for your attendance at this seminar. I hope that together we have achieved some further understanding of the issues which affect the installation of temporary structures.

Over the last 30 hours or so, we have made some new friends, met with old ones, and met many people that we admire. The events industry is a vast, fragmented and varied body, working in it can be fascinating and frustrating but in the end always rewarding. I sincerely hope that you feel the same about our seminar.