The Barefoot Event Professor

Tag: risk management

  • Learning to Say “No”: You’re Allowed to Draw the Line.

    Learning to Say “No”: You’re Allowed to Draw the Line.

    It’s been a while, but I’m back and I’m pulling out my soapbox again.  This time it’s about customer service, so buckle up.

    We’ve all heard the phrase “the customer is always right” and we know it’s a load of crap. Sometimes the customer is so wrong we can’t even understand them; but we have been trained to accommodate them.  We suck it up, smile and do what they asked because we believe this is the way to make them happy.  Not an unreasonable thought, we are in the service industry.  Let’s examine this idea a little more.

    To be clear, I think this is a ridiculous expectation of service professionals.  It makes us feel demoralized when we are doing our best.  So where did this come from?  Of course I put on my research hat, I love an excuse to research, and dove into the origins.

    The phrase is most often attributed to Harry Selfridge in 1905 and Cesar Ritz in 1908, department store and hotel magnates, respectively. Back then, businesses operated under “caveat emptor” (buyer beware). Businesses made what they wanted and marketed it however they liked, misleading claims included, leaving customers to fend for themselves. Selfridge and Ritz’s phrase was revolutionary because it broke from that; it gave customers some power with the intention of improving the relationship.

    Sounds great, right?  So how did we get to a point where customers are taking advantage of the idea?  We got here because we moved from being customer centric to customer obedient.  Customer centric is based in market research and considers the entire target market and industry.  Customer obedient is based in satisfying individuals, without considering the impact on employees, service level, or profits.

    There are a lot of articles written on the idea of “the customer is always right”; most of which agree that it has gone too far.  The main problems with the current execution of this phrase is the creation of entitled customers, the potential impact on profits and the effect on employees.  We have all heard customers use the phrase, or variations of it, to get what they want.  There is an expectation that if something is wrong with the service, they will get something to offset it, usually free.  A great example of this is in restaurants, it is common for food to be comped when a service failure has occurred and when it isn’t customers get mad, usually posting negative reviews on social media. 

    Giving customers comped items can affect profit margins.  I’m not saying businesses should never comp things; I’m saying that businesses need to create a policy that outlines situations when this should happen and what can be offered.  A lot of times a genuine apology is enough to satisfy customers.

    The effect on employees is the most problematic issue, it can be demoralizing.  I’ve been in situations where the customer is complaining about, or asking for, something that is not warranted and had to give it to them.  Once I had an attendee show up at a conference that had not pre-paid.  I quoted the on-site registration fee and he got furious saying that I had to give him the early bird rate.  I explained that rate had closed a month prior and that he needed to pay the on-site fee.  He accused me of cheating him and demanded to see my boss, which is absolutely his right.  My boss came out and the attendee explained that he didn’t want to pay the on-site registration, instead he wanted the early bird fee.  My boss agreed, the attendee gave me a smug look, and I executed the transaction.  I was so mad at my boss for undercutting me, so I reminded myself it wasn’t my event and that I had done my job with the attendee.  I now needed to do my job with my boss.  I explained to him giving the attendee the lower rate was going to impact our profits because the fee was $200 lower.  He told me that wasn’t that bad, so I continued to explain the loss of the fee was significant because now I had to make changes to the event that were not covered in the original contract and would cost us money.  I also told him that by not backing me up he had given the impression that I didn’t have authority to make decisions and could be challenged.  He did apologize and going forward we had a very strict policy on registration fees.  I was lucky that I had a strong relationship with my boss and could have this conversation.  There are businesses that do not want to have the conversation.  For example, one of my first jobs was at McDonalds where “the customer is always right” was sacrosanct.  I had so many customers return food that had a “problem” and we were to apologize and give them a replacement right away.  That also frustrated me because customers would return burgers that had 1-2 bites left and get a new one.  It frustrated me because it was clear they were taking advantage of the policy.  Sometimes they would be polite, but more often they were rude, which is always difficult to deal with.  When employees must do something they know isn’t right, it becomes demoralizing.  This can lead to burnout, turnover, lower service quality, and more service failures; all of which is not good for business as it leads to higher personnel costs.

    Here’s the thing, we haven’t actually retired “the customer is always right”. We’ve just rebranded it. In a lot of workplaces now it shows up wearing a different outfit: “yes, and” instead of “no”.

    You can watch both versions collide in real time if you rewatch the Fyre Festival documentaries (and I know most of you have, and got as mad as I did). The vendors weren’t just being customer-obedient to Billy McFarland’s every demand, they were also operating inside a “yes, and” culture that never left room for anyone to say “this cannot be done”. One of my favourite parts is when the “event professionals” (I use the quotation marks because they clearly were not professionals) complained about not getting paid. My opinion is that some of them shouldn’t have been paid, they should have said “no, this cannot be done” instead.

    “Yes, and” comes from improv theatre, and on its own it’s a genuinely great idea. I LOVE this concept and have used it a lot in my classes and with myself to really explore ideas. I also think it can be used very effectively in the events industry; it can lead to wonderful ideas and solutions as well as collaboration amongst teams. Where I think we drop the ball is believing we can never say “no”. Sometimes an idea is a bad one, and shouldn’t be done. I see this most with risk management, there are times when the answer is “no”. We should offer the reason behind the decision and listen to ideas, but we should also be prepared to stand our ground. If you’re in a situation where someone is in danger, or where the ask is against compliance or law, you should say “no”.

    High-quality service and genuinely happy customers happen when boundaries are set, not when every demand is met. My boss and I could have avoided that whole registration mess with one clear “no” and a policy to back it up. The Fyre Festival vendors could have avoided a documentary’s worth of humiliation with the same word. Employees and customers both do better when they know what to expect.

    So learn to say “no”. Your team, your service quality, and honestly your own sanity will thank you. Okay, I’m getting off my soapbox. Thank you for listening.

  • Astroworld Soapbox 2:  If I Had Planned It.

    Astroworld Soapbox 2:  If I Had Planned It.

    I’m back on my soapbox for Astroworld Part 2.

    The last post focused on what went horrifically wrong with Astroworld.  This post is going to focus on putting my money where my mouth is; I’m going to outline what I would have done in a few areas: contracts; layout; and, risk management plan.  There are a lot of other pieces that go into organizing any event, but I chose these areas as I believe they are the core of the problems that occurred.  Of course, there is a bias in what follows as I have the benefit of knowing what happened and having examined what was done.  The counter argument to that is that I am a responsible event professional who has done the work to learn how to keep events as safe as possible.

    Let’s start with Contracts.  When most people hear the word “contract” it makes them cringe.  I happen to love them, partially due to one of my mentors, Dr. Tyra Warner, who let me help her with research on contracts. 

    The first thing to do when signing contracts is to make sure the parties with whom I sign contracts were capable of assuming the responsibilities and liabilities.  This means researching the companies and asking for credentials, training processes, licenses, certifications, permits, and so on.  Specifically with a security company I want to see their license, how long they have been in business, the types of events they have done in the past, their training practices, and their hiring practices.

    The second thing about contracts is reading them carefully.  When a contract is signed it becomes binding, each party is expected to do what is outlined in the contract.  Saying that you didn’t see that in the contract is not an out.

    The third, and final part about contracts is negotiation.  Typically, a contract is provided by the supplier (security firm, venue, F&B vendors) and favours them, which is understandable.  Everything in a contract is negotiable and you should be making sure that contracts protect both parties and is equally fair.

    Next up, Layout.  The event needed a scale model, which includes all aspects of the events from the staging area (where attendees gather before coming in), to the vendors, the stage, the quadrants, medical tent and vehicles.  The layout should be in several formats, a master copy and close-ups of different areas, and is created in collaboration with everyone that will be on-site. 

    For Astroworld, the command center for Houston PD was set up in a parking lot a mile away from the stages, I would have insisted it be inside the gates.  That reduces the response time as well as removes the visibility of police which can be a deterrent for problems.

    The entrances were a nightmare.  They were clearly too small to accommodate the expected 50,000 people.  They also needed to consider the Covid protocols that were to be used.  The size of the entrances created a bottleneck, which lead to people pushing forward and breaking down the gates. 

    Along with making the entrances larger I would also have used a queuing system that lined people up with a switchback like you see in the airports.  Having a single, long line tends to make people anxious and more prone to pushing; using stanchions and switchbacks give the illusion of movement. 

    The stage, wow it was a bad idea to have 2 stages but only use 1 for the majority of the festival.  I would have advised using a single stage; it would have avoided people moving in the dark through the trees and coming into the quadrants from one side.  If 2 stages were required, I would have used corrals to direct people to the middle aisle so the areas would fill more equally; more on this in the section on the risk management plan. 

    The layout of 100-foot quadrants with partial corrals, was not thought out.  The metal corrals block access from all directions.  In the documentary you could clearly see that people were crushed against the corrals. 

    Another thing that surprised me was no designated mosh pit.  Travis Scott concerts are known to result in mosh pits, not having a designated area(s) meant they happened in the quadrants.  There was already not enough room, now we are adding people bouncing off each other to the mix.

    Finally, lighting, there needed to be a lot more.  There should have been lighting so that people could see where they were going and how crowded it was getting.  The lighting would have been dimmed during the performance so as to not interfere with the pyrotechnics, but could be turned up when problems started happening or to let people know the event was over and it was time to leave.

    Finally, Risk Management Plan. Astroworld had an emergency plan, but not a risk management plan.  An emergency plan is reactive to specific problems.  A well-done risk management plan is proactive, identifying potential risks before the event; allowing for modifications to be made that will reduce the potential for the risks to manifest. 

    To outline a full risk management plan for Astroworld is beyond what I can do here, so I will focus on the crowd movement, which was absent from the Astroworld emergency plan.  First step is to identify how you want the crowd to move through the space.  This is an ideal, but you need to keep in mind that people rarely do what you want.  That means considering all the ways they could move through the space.  A good friend of mine, Ed Slapik, calls this thinking about the lowest common denominator of stupid.  I refer to it as remembering groups of people are stupid and will follow without much thought.  In order to move people from the second stage to the main stage, in the dark, through trees, screams risk to me.  Add to that the 100-foot quadrants, with corrals, and general admission (no assigned seating).  If you talk to any responsible event professional the phrase “general admission” will make them faint of heart, it is known to cause pushing, which leads to crushing.  General admission makes people crazy, they rush to get the best spot because they can.

    If the quadrants and corrals were something that security and medical staff insisted on using, I would have enclosed the quadrant on all sides, widened the aisles, directed the people down the middle aisle and had staff at each entrance counting the number of people entering.  The corral would be closed when the capacity was reached.  There would be staff and signage directing people to different areas. 

    The access aisles needed to be much larger, allowing for vehicles to enter the area if needed.  When problems started occurring people were pulled into the access aisles, but not moved out of them.  Some people needed to be treated immediately, but after treatment there was no way to move them to the medical tents.  I recognize that even with wider access aisles vehicles may not have been able to safely enter the area, but at least there would be space to move people out of danger more easily.

    Individuals with medical training were woefully lacking at Astroworld.  A general rule is 32 individuals with medical training per 10,000 people, meaning there should have been approximately 1500 medical staff on-site.  This rule comes from the Medical Utilization Rate (MUR) or Patient Presentation Rate (PPR), and needs to also consider the specifics of the event to determine the appropriate number.  I found one article that mentioned the medical company hired by Astroworld had 70 people on-site.

    It is clear there was no communication plan for the event, even though communication is a crucial part the overall event, but especially for a risk management plan.  There needed to be identified staff with radios and headsets on a dedicated channel giving updates on a regular basis to the organizer, medical staff and Houston PD.  This staff’s only responsibility is to monitor the crowd looking for indications of problems so they could be dealt with quickly.

    I’m going to end with this thought:  there is no such thing as a risk-free event.  No matter how good someone is, things will go wrong even with a well thought out risk management plan.  While I cannot say definitively say that deaths and injuries were preventable at Astroworld;  I can say that implementing basic risk management protocols would have helped and it’s shameful that it didn’t happen.

    I’m going to get off my soapbox, for now.  You can bet I will bring it out again.

  • Soapbox Alert: What Astroworld Should Teach Every Event Professional

    Soapbox Alert: What Astroworld Should Teach Every Event Professional

    Fair warning—I’m getting out my soapbox.

    Some of you may have already watched the Netflix documentary Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy. If you haven’t, I highly recommend it—but be prepared to be angry. You should be angry, whether or not you work in events. There’s so much to unpack, I’m breaking this into two blog posts. This first one is focused on information you may not know—bear with me, it’s a lot, but it matters.

    The Start of the Spiral

    When the tragedy at Astroworld happened, I was interviewed by News Nation Prime. It was my first time being interviewed on national news and I was nervous. So I leaned into my superpower: research.

    It took less than a minute to find red flags.

    Let’s start at the beginning: there were no proper entrance procedures, and the entry points were far too narrow. In the documentary, you see people literally pushing down fences. Once that happened, any ability to control crowd numbers was gone. I was honestly shocked no one was seriously injured right then and there—although reports say a security guard and four attendees were treated for injuries.

    Want to know how they staffed security? At 6 a.m., someone posted on social media asking for more help; around 100 people volunteered. They were given a t-shirt, but no training. By 8 a.m., Houston PD had already requested riot gear.

    Meanwhile, the official Astroworld website promised COVID protocols, wristband checks, and full bag and body searches. None of that happened because of the surge through the gates. By 2 p.m., entrance protocols were completely abandoned. The headliner, Travis Scott, wasn’t even scheduled to go on until 8:45 p.m., but the problems had started 12 hours earlier.

    What You Didn’t See in the Documentary

    There’s confusion about the actual capacity of the venue. Some say 20,000; others say 200,000. Here’s what I found: the 20,000 is for the stadium (which wasn’t used for the festival). The outdoor venue was theoretically capable of holding 200,000 people—if there was nothing else in the space.

    But there was a lot else: food vendors, rides, medical tents, two stages. Each one takes up space—and not just their footprint. You also need safety clearance zones around them. For example, a ride’s footprint includes not just its base but the full area it occupies while operating. All of that eats into your usable capacity.

    At the time, Houston didn’t require an occupancy permit. Live Nation, the promoter, sold 50,000 tickets. But with so many people jumping fences, we honestly don’t know how many were actually there.

    Design Flaws and Dangerous Layouts

    Let’s talk layout. If you look at images of the festival, here’s what stands out:

    • Minimal signage
    • Poor lighting
    • Only two water stations
    • Limited exits
    • 100-foot-wide quadrants
    • Narrow access aisles

    And the main stage? Not used all day. So when it was time for Travis Scott’s performance, everyone moved toward one focal point, funneling into those 100-foot quadrants—with no crowd monitoring and no signage to direct people across the space. Security started pulling people over fencing into narrow aisles—essentially making things worse.

    By 4 p.m., 54 people had already been treated for injuries. Houston PD had flagged dangerous conditions. The Chief of Police met with Travis Scott to voice concerns. That’s four hours before the show even started.

    Security—In Name Only

    There are lots of conflicting reports about security numbers. Some say there were over 1,000 personnel, including Houston PD and two private firms. Technically, that aligns with the industry rule of thumb: one security staff member per 50–100 attendees.

    But numbers aren’t everything.

    You must match staff to your event. Peer security (a.k.a. untrained volunteers) requires more oversight. And guess what? Neither of the security companies hired were licensed in Texas. Some workers said they didn’t even know who to report to.

    Who Was in Charge?

    A lot of attention has been put on Travis Scott. And yes, his past behavior is a problem—he’s been charged twice with inciting crowds, and there was a crowd surge at his own Astroworld event in 2019.

    That said, he hired Live Nation—the “world’s leading live entertainment company”—to run the show. He states in the documentary that he wasn’t qualified to plan the festival, so he hired a company that did have the expertise.

    Let’s take a look at LiveNation:

    • 200 deaths and 750 injuries reported at their events since 2006
    • 10 OSHA violations between 2016–2019
    • No certification requirements for project managers—just 3 or more years of experience

    Yes, there was an emergency plan. It included scenarios like severe weather, active shooters, missing children, and unruly fans. But guess what it didn’t include? Crowd surges. One of the most common risks at concerts.

    Even worse: the only people authorized to stop the show were the “concert’s executive producer and festival director.” Their names were not listed in the plan. That’s a massive oversight.

    Back to the Layout

    The layout was approved by the City of Houston and the Fire Marshal. Permits were issued for tents, pyrotechnics, food vendors, and street closures. But again—no capacity permit was required, just a safety plan filed with property owners.

    So what happened during the show?

    It started around 9 p.m.—a little late, but not unusually so. Within 15 minutes, Travis Scott stopped the show briefly for a distressed fan (we see this in the documentary). Reports say he paused two more times. But by 9:40 p.m., a mass casualty event had been declared by the police. Still, they didn’t stop the show—for fear of triggering a riot.  My question is, aren’t they trained for that?

    The concert finally ended at 10:15 p.m.—more than 30 minutes after that declaration.

    Final Thoughts (for Now)

    There’s still so much we don’t know. And if you have insights—please share. If you spot something I missed or got wrong—tell me. I’m here to learn, too. Most of all, I want to hear what you think. The good, the bad, the ugly. Let’s talk.

    Your turn. GO.