Public address system

At any event you must be able to tell the public what is happening. Even the best-programmed event timetable can go awry and the visitors may (or should hopefully) have lost track of time as they enjoy themselves. You do not want them to miss the one attraction that they attend the event to see, so you need a public address (PA) . This will also be used for the usual lost children, ‘Will the owner of the white van please move it’ and lost sunglasses messages.

The people setting up and running the side shows will probably appreciate a warning such as ‘the gates open in 15 minutes’ and will ask you to make announcements such as ‘all burgers at half price’ before the stall shuts down each night.

It is likely that on a very small primary school event, public announcements can be made using a megaphone, but any larger events will need to either borrow a PA system from somebody, or call on the services of a commercial organisation to install one. It is likely that the PA system can be sourced from the same organisation that rents you any pocket radios for the event.

Emergency PA messages

I strongly recommend that you adopt a ‘code’ for emergency messages. Rather than alert troublemakers and unnecessarily scare members of the public with emergency messages such as ‘All security staff to main arena to stop drunks fighting’, use a code.

At an event where not all staff have radios, many events and venues broadcast messages to an invented person to pass emergency messages, e.g. your security staff will be briefed that any message for Winston Churchill is an emergency message for security staff. Thus the apparently normal message, ‘Will Winston Churchill go to the main arena’ has the same meaning and effect as the first message, without frightening the public.

Of course if there is an immediate danger, e.g. a tent on fire, broadcast the warning in plain language, to:

• clear the area of members of the public,
• ascertain from the tent staff if everybody is clear,
• make sure that the fire and rescue service has been called,
• take any safe action to prevent the spread of the fire, and
• begin clearing a route from the main gate to the seat of the fire to allow easy accesses for fire engines.

If you do select a name for an emergency message code, make it an obscure name – one day somebody will come to the event manager’s office and say ‘Hello, I’m Winston Churchill, who wants me? ‘You could decide on a message that uses no names, for example your emergency message might be, ‘Message for the site plumber. Will the site plumber go to the main arena’!

More importantly, the member of staff operating the PA system should be aware of the emergency messages to avoid making innocent announcements from a real Mrs Churchill, who turns up asking for a message to be put out for her husband to meet her at the candy floss stall!