Public safety concerns increasingly dominate the agenda for all event organisers. The introduction of The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 – also known as Martyn’s Law – has focused attention on accountability and the risks associated with terrorism. But organisers are also managing a complex and diverse range of other risks, from the traditional health and safety challenges and staffing shortages, to rising costs, an escalation in cyber-attacks, and everything in between. So, how can they improve the effectiveness of all safeguarding models? What is the best way to achieve accountability while relying on multiple contractors to deliver core services? And, critically, how does the overall experience affect both customer perception of safety and their enjoyment at an event?
Lloyd Major, CEO, Halo Solutions, explains how the next generation of incident control rooms can both improve public safety and support cost-effective resource allocation and management.
Public Safety Accountability
The escalating focus on public safety created by the ratification of Martyn’s Law has reinforced awareness of safety procedures and the resources required in a continuously evolving threat landscape. While an essential step in creating a consistent, coherent approach to safety, it is important to remember that safeguarding the public is not just about ticking the boxes required by regulation. It is a vital aspect of the overall attendee experience and a chance to build credibility and trust with customers. When people feel safe, they will stay longer on site and, as a result, spend more money. Most important, they will come back – dwell time and repeat attendance have long been considered key metrics that directly impact bottom line.
The challenge for public venues is how best to achieve accountability and reinforce public safety within existing financial constraints, especially when so many services are delivered by third parties and prices are rising. What is the best approach to ensure accurate information collection, incident sharing, resource management plotted against risk, and effective cross-department collaboration? There is no doubt that technology has provided a platform to transform the speed of response and depth of understanding in recent years. However, in an era of ubiquitous mobile communication and cloud data storage, there are some businesses still 100% reliant on the first-generation, analogue approach to incident management, using pen and paper to record incidents.
The majority are now exploring how to use digital systems to transition their control rooms to a second generation approach, but even this leaves significant gaps and could be exponentially improved to transform both effectiveness and safety. Adding a second-generation use of WhatsApp messaging to Word documents and spreadsheets, for example, still requires dedicated control centre staff to transcribe incident information, slowing response and adding cost, while not delivering any significant improvement to the evidential standard of the control room, the integrity and trustworthiness of its audit trail, or any efficiencies brought about by trend analysis or resource to risk mapping.
Next Generation Control
Moving to the third stage, we see a purpose-built, web-based incident management system as the first step towards elevated collaboration. However, the next (fourth) generation incorporates mobile applications to deliver direct, front-line communications, removing the need for dedicated incident loggists and enabling different teams to collaborate immediately on shared information. The next generation of incident control systems leverages technologies while adding another layer of collaboration and insight to deliver end-to-end visibility and control. Efficiency and trusted evidence capture demands digitally recorded, time-stamped incident information that cannot be maliciously altered after the event and, critically, is stored securely, rather than routinely deleted.
Rapid and effective incident response demands both the use of mobile communication and data capture and highly effective models of collaboration that ensure teams work together and with emergency services if required, friction free. Fourth generation control rooms give everyone the information they need, when they need it. No more rumour mill. No more misinformation. No more inaction.
Also, providing the pubic with the ability to report incidents including sexual assault, drug dealing and missing people (via QR code, URL weblink embedded in third party software or SMS), improves the flow of information to all relevant agencies, including photographic evidence sent directly to the police and, as a result, enhances the overall perception of attendee safety. It reinforces a continual cycle of improvement as risky people are removed from and banned from places where the public gather, improving the safety of those places and, therefore, dwell time and re-attendance of the public.
Control Room of the Future
Where do we go from here? The future control room is one that integrates multiple automated artificial intelligence systems. It’s not enough that the IMS at the heart of the control room has AI, it must integrate with other systems that also have it and thus fully deliver a series of safe automations.
For example, a fire safety system capable of focusing the cameras on the source of the fire, automatically creating an incident, alerting the response team, and live streaming to them and the control room what is happening. This automated workflow would be built in advance by the business using the systems to agree on “If This, Then That” (IFTTT) type staging.
In another example, an AI computer vision layer across the top of the CCTV ‘sees’ the abnormal swinging of arms and detects a fight. It focuses the cameras, creating an incident, but doesn’t alert the response team without the human controller confirming first.
A further example might be in the event of an industrial accident. The incident gets tagged with “fatality” and, as a result of that tag, a sequence of workflows is set in motion that trigger emails, SMS and even automated phone calls to the relevant people on a list, alerting them to an MS Teams conference that’s been created and is starting in 15 minutes.
The control room of the future will be multi-system, multi-functional and multi-purpose, elevated by AI but with humans at the centre of the way it works, taking the strain off a series of automated steps and actions.
Conclusion
Improvements in operational safety and security are at the forefront of every practitioner’s mind at the moment, as they deal with pressure to achieve more with less.
Over the next 18 months in the UK, we will see the Security Industry Authority (SIA) working to deliver guidance and further understanding on the implications of Martyn’s Law. With it, organisations will begin to understand and identify gaps within their current procedures, policies and resources to meet this new demand in harmony with the others they balance on a daily basis.
It is always important to look beyond any recency bias and the new regulatory demands. Old risks are not going away and, if anything, after recent cyberattacks on M&S and others, it seems no one is safe! The efficiency with which any business manages its incidents affects not only regulatory compliance, but also its bottom line and the quality of customer experience. Students will not go to unsafe universities; travellers do not use overcrowded, unsafe transport hubs; but safe, happy event attendees will spend more time on site at festivals, sports stadia and entertainment locations. More time on site equals more money spent, and more repeat business.
Public safety economics is linked to every aspect of the financial success and performance of a public event and, increasingly, that includes scrutiny of the safety and security operations. But you can’t enhance what you don’t record. The businesses that are performing best have a wealth of data and insights from their IMS that informs meaningful, data-driven and evidence-based decision making to maximise safety, time and finances. Or, in other words, that saves time, money and lives.
To identify how to transition your control room to the next generation, read the white paper from Halo Solutions, here.
