Risk Mitigation Must Be Planned for When it Comes to Events

Let‘s Talk HR - Humanizing the Conversation

Planning an event is hard, they are meant to be fun, educational, festive, and so many other things. What we don’t think about, is that planning an event is not just about all the detail of who will speak, how many chairs you need, it is also about how to keep your attendees as safe as possible if and when things come up. This week's guest shines a light on what an event hall is responsible for and what the host is responsible for. Tune in, because I was shocked!

Leighann Lovely 00:20

HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both, because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely, let's get this conversation started. I have Sarah Davis joining us today. She is the CEO of event safety plus, where they focus in mitigating safety concerns before they happen at events and ensuring a proper response should they occur. They work with people to organize events, large and small, determine risk factors and create easy to execute safety plans. This is going to be an awesome opportunity to learn about how to make sure that the events that we all put on are safe and have the great plans that need to be put in place are in place. So I'm excited to jump into this conversation with her today. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today.

Sarah Davis 02:01

It is wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.

Leighann Lovely 02:03

So you, you have such an amazing, interesting business. So I'm excited to talk with you. Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Sarah Davis 02:16

Sure. So I am the CEO of event safety plus, and we work with event planners, anyone planning an event to mitigate safety concerns before they happen. And create safety plans for those events are goals that everyone should be able to attend things safely. But me personally, I live outside of Chicago, I lived here since before COVID. So I haven't really explored much, which is funny. But we'll we'll do that eventually right born and raised in Michigan. And we started this company about a year ago now because we were at an event where an active shooter happened, it was a parade and with our background, my partner and I our background in emergency services and emergency management, we saw some things that with a little bit of extra planning could have been way different and less impactful on the community. And we we knew that we could make a difference. And we knew we can make a change with those things. So we started the company.

Leighann Lovely 03:24

So and first. Wow. I mean for being at an event. That's such a scary, I mean, even even being blocks away and hearing that you're hearing gunshots or hearing any type of it's just such an amazing ly amazingly terrifying. situation I've been, and I was in my home when this happened, but when gunshots ring out and you just immediately you know that that fear factor because you have no idea where it's coming from where it's pointed. So, I mean, first of all, that's it's amazing that that idea, you know, at that point came up for you. And to that you've you've taken on, you know, a position, an opportunity to say, hey, let's create something that can actually help mitigate, you know, risk in situations like this. And I'm assuming that this is not or that there is not a whole ton of companies out there that do what you do.

Sarah Davis 04:38

No, no, there are a few companies that give you some tools to kind of do it yourself and make a plan and offer you know, some 30 minutes courses, things like that. But But the bigger thing is that people that plan events are creative. They're planners, they want to you know make the event beautiful Well, they want everybody to have fun, right? And a lot of event planners or people that plan events, because that everybody that plans that event has that title. They're not trained in what risk factors and what safety factors can happen at their event. And we're talking just little things. I'm not even talking big things like an active shooter or a tornado, we're talking, what would happen if somebody had a heart attack at your event? Does somebody know how to use the AED machine? Or do CPR? Or are you yelling for somebody who knows CPR in the crowd, it would be so much easier if the event planners or the coordinators had those skill sets to make sure that people can be taken care of. Those are just some small things that factor into the reason we started this.

Leighann Lovely 05:53

So explain to me, obviously, it's not something that many people think about it large or small, I mean, there's there potentially could be risk at a very, you know, a 20 person event versus a 350 person event, obviously, risk goes up, the larger the event is, more people you have, you know, higher risk that somebody could have a heart attack or slice the risk on a garbage can that has a whatever, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So explain to me, when you, you know, when you first start talking to people, you know, what is the responsibility of, for instance, like a hall? Or of the location that they're going to, versus the responsibility of the person who's planning the actual event? Where is there? You know, whose responsibility is is what and where that fall?

Sarah Davis 06:57

Sure, and that's a an amazing question. Because a lot of people think, if they rent out, say, a hall for a work event, or something like that, and it's attached to a hotel, just, I'm living groundwork here, you know, and the fire alarm goes off, it's your responsibility, not the hotels to get your people out safely, they are not going to come down to the hall and help you get out, they're all getting out of the hotel. And they hope you do too. They they wish you no ill will, right. They're not like, you know, hoping you don't get out. They all but they are not coming down to help you evacuate your people, you need to evacuate the hall yourself, you need to know where those exits are. And you need to have a plan to get everybody out. And this is where a lot of times, if you've ever rented a spot, and people that are listening, probably have done this to where you get in there and all the tables are lined up in a specific manner, right, or all the circle tables are in a specific location. And then you know what you want to do breakouts, you want to do this. So you start moving the tables, and somebody from the hotel walks by and he's like, No, you can't do that. Because if the fire alarm goes off, and the tables aren't where they put them, they can't guarantee it, that you meet the fire code to be able to get out of that room. And that's their, that's their responsibility to make sure that you need the fire code to get out of the room. But if you mess it up, it's not on your plate to to make sure people have the paths to get out. And if you move all those tables, they may not. So back to your original question. It's the event planner, or the host of the event, it's their responsibility to know the hazards that can come into play, and have a proper plan should they occur.

Leighann Lovely 08:45

That's wildly interesting. And here's why. Because I'm going to guess the majority of the people that you speak with it, especially when it comes to hey, I'm going to rent out this small hall and I'm going to have a 25 person birthday party. Yeah. And they I'm going to guess that they say, well, it would be the hotel's responsibility to make sure that if something were to go wrong, that they're going to help us out.

Sarah Davis 09:14

No, right. And I know it isn't, it's their responsibility to make sure that the fire alarm and the sprinklers are working, and that there is a path for you to get out. But 98% of the time, they don't provide even an exit strategy for you unless you ask. So if you do ask most hotels and conference centers say these are our 10 exits, right? This is the closest one to you. And they have something to the effect of what you see on the back of hotel room doors, where it's like if the smoke alarm goes off, follow this and you'll get to your nearest exit, right. They would have that for conference rooms too, but they're not coming to help you.

Leighann Lovely 09:56

Right. And and what is the first thing that you know when I I go to an event or when I've helped set up an event, the one of the first things that people do is start going, Okay, where are we going to move these tables to make it effective for us to do XYZ? And up and that, I mean, it happens. If I can't read or write, I can't think of a place that I've gone that when I'm helping setup, that's like one of the first things that people do.

Sarah Davis 10:24

Yeah, yeah. And that is something that you should not do that I do not recommend doing. Right? Because you can throw off your exit strategy should need to exit. Interesting. Most people go into these events, though, with the mentality of that's never going to happen to me. And so that that is something that we have encountered a lot too.

Leighann Lovely 10:49

Right. So, now let's talk a little bit more about injury or, you know, like saying outdoor events. So, you know, we have some of these? Well, I have a couple of events coming up that, you know, one is is an outdoor, very large event. So let's, let's, let's talk about what is the responsibility of, say, the grounds when it comes to somebody slips, falls, bangs their head, and now they need emergency support of some kind to be taken to the nearest hospital? Or what is the responsibility of the person who's putting on the event versus the responsibility of the grounds to make sure that there is a safe, quick way to get them off the grounds or emergency care?

Sarah Davis 11:39

Sure, sure. So there's two answers to that. It depends on where you're renting outside, and what you've agreed to beforehand. So if you're renting a outdoor venue, and they're providing grounds crew, for you, in some sort of safety measures, right, like they're providing people to park cars and stuff like that, because some places want cars parked under a certain spot, and whatever, they may have an opportunity for you to say, will you help us if safety concerns happen? Okay, but go ahead.

Leighann Lovely 12:16

And I'm just gonna, is that a question you have to ask?

Sarah Davis 12:19

Yes. 100%? That is a question you have to ask, when you're signing that agreement, whatever that agreement ends up being. But 98% of the time, when you do an outdoor event, you're doing it in a park or a fairgrounds, or, you know, pick a location, they may have people that are changing the trash for you. And sometimes they don't even have that it might be your responsibility. But 90% of the time, they are not providing people that will help in those situations, they are not going to provide you medical services or transportation for your people out of the location to the hospital, none of that. So your choices, I have a medical tenant with, you know, maybe a nurse that is there to help with immediate concerns. And I call 911 If something were to happen, or you just call 911 and waves, and I think get into why that's not always the best scenario,

Leighann Lovely 13:20

right? Depending on the city that you're in, depending on the location, you're sad, it's response time can be 12 minutes or two minutes, depending on how populated the city is. Or exactly, or it can be 21 minutes

Sarah Davis 13:34

Or how remotes how remote you are. Yeah. So if you're in an area that has, you know, volunteer fire department, it could be 20 to 30 minutes before somebody can get there.

Leighann Lovely 13:45

Right? So if you're dealing with a heart attack, that's the difference between life and death.

Sarah Davis 13:51

Yep.

Leighann Lovely 13:53

Processing. Yeah, every interest.

Sarah Davis 13:56

It can be scary, it can be scary. And this is where sometimes what I do, and the stories that I tell can get a little scary. And that's why what we do is so important, because we want people to go to events to have fun. We saw all of the planning, and all of the safety concerns can be done beforehand. And, you know, pre planned for and all of that. So if something does happen, it can be taken care of quickly, and the fun can continue to happen. Right? And I know you're gonna say it's hard to have fun if somebody has a heart attack. So take that out of the situation for a hot second. But let's take a sprained ankle, right. If you're at a large wedding venue and someone's sprained their ankle in the middle of the dance floor, you want to have a plan to move them get them somewhere safe. You know, do we need to call 911? Do we need to just wrap it, you don't leave them in the middle of the dance floor and have people dance around them? slightly funny but not appropriate. Right?

Leighann Lovely 14:55

Sorry, I know. I'm laughing because it's it's ridiculous. Uh, that somebody would do that. But then you take into account that, in most, you know, most, a lot of these places you have a lot of intoxicated people and Right. Right. So and it's interesting because now as you're, as you're bringing these things up, I'm going through my my rolodex in my head of wow, I've been at a baseball game, where a a friend gots a ring, crunched in a door, and then that ring was actually bent and started pinching off the circulation to her finger, where, you know, immediately we had to go to, you know, at the stadium, they had a full blown nurse's station, and ended up having to do it. Right. So we immediately called one of the attendants, what do we do? Where do we go, they had a full blown Medical Center on the first floor had to go down, they ended up having to actually cut the ring off, right? You know, and in that situation, if that wasn't the I mean, it would have been get out of the stadium, go to the emergency room.

Sarah Davis 16:11

And that would have been go to your car, get out of the parking lot, go to the emergency room, that could have been a 30 to 40 minute adventure correct in order to get it cut it off. Whereas in this case, it was probably seven done in 15 minutes.

Leighann Lovely 16:25

And in less than that. And sure, sure, finger was perfectly fine. She was actually able to enjoy the rest of the day, other than the fact that she just lost a ring. But, you know, that could have been rather lose a ring but the finger? Correct? Correct. I mean, you 30 to 40 minutes of having no circulation to your finger that could have done damage that could have done nerve damage that could have done multiple. And then, you know, again, as you're talking at, you know, I've I've now that I'm thinking about it, a lot of the fairs, especially, you know, going it's, you know, we're experiencing summer, there's little tents that I always that I've seen it quite a few of them where they have, you know, these two people sitting in there's like a little Medical Center, you know.

Sarah Davis 17:09

Yeah, so I mean those people are probably CPR certified, they have, you know, band aids for kids, they have some ace bandages in case, but they can triage the situation, right, you can come to them with a cut bleeding and they wash it off, they're like, Go, it's just a surface thing, you know, go back out and have fun, right? They can triage things. And that's a key, that's a key to Planning Fairs, do some fairs, I should say, do really well with that, right? They have a really good plan for medical care, because especially if there's going to be animals, different things, you never know what an animal is going to do to somebody. Right, right. I lived in the country, I've seen cows kill people, so you never know. So they always have a plan for that. However, a lot of fairs don't have a good evacuation plan. Because they try to limit the entrances and exits, so that they can limit the amount of people it's how they make money. Right, right. And so there's limited and entries and exits for people to leave should something happen. And a lot of fears and counter weather, right. So if there's a lightning storm or a tornado coming in, and everybody needs to get to their cars, it can be a bottleneck. And that causes people to be injured in the bottleneck. But it also might not allow them to get home in a quick enough manner.

Leighann Lovely 18:30

Well, and we all heard, what year was it the story of the doors that opened the back backwards. This was many, many years ago, but it was a concert hall of some kind. Oh, I remember that, you know, shooting happened inside and when everybody tried to flee the doors opened

Sarah Davis 18:47

doors backwards, back, right? Instead of out correct. The legal in every state, but

Leighann Lovely 18:54

right getting into that, right. And I think that actually, I mean, this was many, many, many, many years ago, like really set the bar of if somebody walks into your facility, and those doors are opening the wrong way. Like you're immediately shut down like you cannot like that is just the stupidest thing in the world. And that was one of the I mean, that hit like it. I don't want to say international that hit National, absolute national news, because I think like hundreds of people died from trampling on each other. Trying to get out. So yeah,

Sarah Davis 19:32

because you know, the first few people couldn't open the doors at all. So where's everybody else gonna go? They're gonna start pushing. Correct. Yeah.

Leighann Lovely 19:39

And just continue to push and push.

Sarah Davis 19:43

And there are still some cities that filat I don't know what the term is, but like grandfathered in, so that you don't know they're older buildings, they, they don't have to be brought up to code because they're historic or whatever. And so there are Some places like that, that aren't allowed to be event venues anymore, even use them for other things. But they can't be event venues because of those concerns,

Leighann Lovely 20:11

right. Which is, I mean, that seems like it's a no brainer. If you can't have certain can't have a certain amount of people in one area, if all of a sudden, there's going to be a mob trying to get out. And what I have seen it a lot of these larger venues or events is that they, you know, is having some of these entrances, they don't have real they don't have real walls per se, to get in. It's more like fences that can easily call down. Like if, if everybody needs to get out there fences that can actually be dropped so that people can come that a large amount of people can get out. And I've seen more and more places doing that. Because again, if people need to flee, the last thing that you want is people trampling each other killing each other while they're fleeing. I mean,

Sarah Davis 21:07

exactly. And some of those simple things can be pre planned for, right. In we we go through that, like, with the trampling thing, a lot of a lot of places, like you said, are coming up with the fence thing, the different options for easy exit, exits, and things like that. But it's honestly things that don't happen often that people don't plan for, and they can turn into a problem. I'm going to use a quick example here that just happened is about six months ago, there was a tornado here, around me and there was an indoor event, it was an indoor concert, a smaller venue, you know, kind of a local band type thing. Well, the people that had planned the event were on site, right? They just had like ticket takers and that sort of thing. And so a tornado watch warning, all of it came for a few hours beforehand, they're like this is happening. You need to you know, evacuate, everybody needs to record, no one had the authority to cancel the event. So the roof gets torn off people perished that day, all because no one had the authority to cancel the event. And that's one of the keys to some of these events is is canceling when you're supposed to and not putting your life and other people's life in danger. So weather is a big factor.

Leighann Lovely 22:33

Yeah. And that's scary. And you're right, if nobody at the actual event has the ability to cancel, everybody's looking at each other going well, what are we supposed to do? And that's interesting, I think you and I had talked about that when we initially met because I was at an event in a fully glass. It was you know, it was indoors, and all the walls were all glass. And as the tornado warnings, I remember the person who was running the event goes, guys, we have to get up. We're all going into the bathroom. And we're all like what, okay, and we ended up at and it was good. I mean, it was great, because there was no question it was with, you know, it was a chamber event that I was at, and it was just, everybody stand up. We're we're evacuating this room and is not safe. There wasn't a matter of whose authority we just all went, Okay. I mean, I took my lunch, right? And we all pout, we know, although there was not very many men, it was it was quite a few more women. We all went into the bathroom. Eventually the men were like, well, can we come in there? And we're like, yeah, why not? And we continued to have our meetings standing up all in the women's bathroom, because it lasted a long time. And it was like, well, we might as well. At least talk while we're on here. Correct. You know, and so I mean, and it got hot, and it and we ended up making a joke of it. And it, it was great. It was fine. And when it was over, we all went back into the other room finished our meeting, and it was something to talk about.

Sarah Davis 24:05

But I want to take a group photo in there. We did. We did. Okay, wonderful. Yeah, so make me feel better. And

Leighann Lovely 24:11

it was posted on LinkedIn, you know, wonderful meeting in the women's bathroom and blah, blah, blah. And you know, and it and it ended up being, you know, a talking point. But the point being is that, you know, somebody you know, was monitoring the weather events process, correct and eventually got to the point where it was like, Guys, this is not a safe room. We're, you know, on two full walls were was all glass. It's like this is not the room on a lovely sunny day.

Sarah Davis 24:40

It's the best room ever on a stormy tornado day. Not necessarily the best.

Leighann Lovely 24:46

Yeah, I don't want to go home with glass punctures throughout my entire body or not go home at all. Exactly. So. So give me an example of a how you make sure that event planners can be better prepared. But in situations that have, you know, gone wrong, because they didn't have somebody like you, and I know that you've kind of given me some examples, but, you know, even just like the simple, almost almost funny stuff that, that you've come across, where people are just like, oh, well, I didn't know that. I mean, just the.

Sarah Davis 25:19

Sure, sure. So first and foremost, is all about having conversations about, you know, where their event is, how many people they're expecting, what their setup is, we talk about all that stuff up front, so we can get an idea of what they're going to be going through. And, you know, we don't plan for hurricanes in North Dakota, right, we're not gonna plan for you know, I don't know, earthquakes in Michigan, I mean, maybe because there's technically a fault line somewhere there. But we're not going to write because on the average, that's not gonna happen. So we talked about the all hazards that impact there, but people do like there are funny things that happen that people just don't think about. And I'll give an example. This is 10 years ago, I was at an event and I show up, and there's 10, like those 12 by 12, white, like pop up tents that people put tables under. And they're all in a row. And people are going to each one of them picking up something and put it in a bag like it's a, you know, an event where you're filling up a bag with tchotchkes, and we were there for probably 30 minutes when all of a sudden this bright sunny day, had a gust of wind that blew every single tent. Nobody got hurt, but four cars had smashed windows. And I seriously to this day, I have a picture of it somewhere. I still laugh every time I see it, because literally they all just went because whoever set them up was like, oh, it's bright and sunny, and there's no wind, I don't have to attach them to the ground. Right?

Leighann Lovely 27:02

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, if our audience could see as I'm putting my hand in my, or my head in my hand going, oh my god, you gotta be kidding me. Like, come on.

Sarah Davis 27:13

Those are the little things that we can remind people of in their plan. You're like, Okay, you're gonna have you know, 10 tents at your event, make sure that they are secured. Right. As you know, you're going to have a bouncy house, can we not be in the news with the kid flying out of the bouncy house because it got lifted up by the wind, right? And we laugh about it when kids aren't injured. Sometimes the kid could fall out. If the kid stays. It's funny. But if the kid pops out that it can it can be not funny. Right? And so, yeah, there's a lot of certain things like that, that happen that do tend to make people think, well, nobody got hurt, and how often can that happen? So why should I plan for it? And that's the wrong mentality to have, with those 10 tents when they were thrown into cars. All that would have taken was one kid to be in the wrong spot, right? And instead of that car window, it was a kid's head, right? And those are the reasons we plan for these things. And those are the reasons we get cool photographs in bathrooms, right? When people plan accordingly because everybody's safe. That's why I have a cool picture of tents, literally impaling cars, because no one was in was injured. And that's what I want.

Leighann Lovely 28:35

And it's funny that you bring that up, because every time you know, I every once in a while we'll go to like, you know, like a street days type thing. And I you know, I have some crafts that I sell. And every time I get irritated that I have to bring those sandbags to secure my tent, and I'm like, it's a beautiful day. Why do I have to do this, but they will make you take your tent down? If you have not brought the sandbags to secure your tent, and I'm always like, but

Sarah Davis 29:01

they've seen something like what I just described happen,

Leighann Lovely 29:04

correct? Somebody Yep, it's 10 flew into and you're, you know, you're on the street windows all behind you have all the businesses, I'm sure that they've seen it go through somebody's business window, or maybe worse, hurt somebody.

Sarah Davis 29:18

And possibly they're liable and not you which makes them have you adhere to those rules, right? Which, which is the the other thing, right, like, you know, once you sign on the dotted line when you're renting out a location or using a park or whatever that liability is now on you. And so when you go to those vendor fairs, the vendor organizer is the one that's liable for everything that happens right? So I mean, unless you purposely like hit somebody on something but if if an accident happens they're liable for it and an accident would be your tent moving

Leighann Lovely 29:53

right. So very interesting. I that is something again, that it's it's just not I thought about, like, it's just not one of those things that when you're going through all of the details, you're not thinking, Oh, this could happen, or oh, this could happen. Now, here's here's an interesting one. And this is not an event, but I witnessed something wildly interesting. Because again, I'm a very pragmatic, practical person. We go to the dog park, and we bring our five year old daughter, okay? Yes. Now, when we walk in there, we explained to our daughter, if dogs are growling, if they're barking, or if a whole clump of them get close to you, you slowly walk away and you get as close to mommy and daddy as possible. In some cases, we pick her up, because Sure, there isn't. Yeah, there. And we explain this to her as we walk in, right, we're, we're mitigating the risk factor of the of the fact that we are bringing our five year old daughter into a risky situation. But knowing that the majority of dogs that go to the dog park are dog friendly, and typically do not go after each other. So the other day, we're in there, and his dog was really excited to see our daughter and ran up and just stopped too, too short. And my daughter just went, boom, right on her butt. And, and the owner. The owner comes running over, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And my daughter's crying now because she was hurt. Because she was started. She started. We picked her up and I said it's not a problem. We brought our five year old to a dog park where we know some dogs get excited. It's not your it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Now. We witnessed another situation where a woman wearing shorts that basically were underwear got scratched by another woman's dock. And she went ballistic. Completely ballistic on this other woman How dare your dog scratch me How dare your dogs? And I'm like,

Sarah Davis 32:06

You came to the park in booty shorts and expected what that you weren't gonna get scratched your own dog could have scratched you.

Leighann Lovely 32:16

Right? Right. You're you're wearing like you're not you have no protection on knowing that there's going to be dogs jumping on each other, jumping on your dog jumping all around. I just witnessed my daughter getting knocked over by a dog that was not non threatening. This dog was not threatening by any means just excited, too excited, just really excited and sweetest pie dog like, you know, we were petting her and my daughter after the little mini trauma that she experienced was petting and giggling with it. But this woman was I mean, just out of her mind angry that How dare her dog scratch her by accident, by the way. I mean, this was a jump up. And so I on a regular basis. Having a kid, I'm constantly looking around to mitigate, you know, the risk around her. But even percent, even being somebody who is constantly, you know, looking at risk versus reward. You know, in my own life, there is no way that I could possibly put all of the things that you're talking about into? I guess, you know, it's not my area of expertise. So right for me, it doesn't make any sense why somebody would that doesn't have experience wouldn't reach out to somebody like you, at least for like, Hey, Sarah, do you have a checklist? Do you have? I mean, do you go through? So do you tear your program on how engaged you you are going to be with people?

Sarah Davis 34:01

We do? So are what you're talking about, right? There would be our like, kind of first or, you know, whatever tier, we have a one hour spot you can you can get on a call with us. And literally just ask us any questions about safety that we can get done in an hour. You can we can provide you with a list of things that you should be, you know the basics of anywhere in the country that you should be looking at around safety, well, then you can get on this call and ask us whatever you want to ask us in any way shape or form. And then we go up from there because some people want an actual written out plan where they can go to a tab, you know, thing a happened, what do I do? Right? And and that's wonderful. A lot of people do want that. And that's something that we can provide an update, you know, yearly at their event or quarterly whenever they're about that happens. And then finally, our third option is where we actually come we do all those two first things, but then we're on site for your event to ensure that if something pops up that, you know, it's not in the book, or you don't want to handle it, and it is in the book or whatever, we will handle it on site.

Leighann Lovely 35:22

Awesome. And what is your background? Where did you know you run this business with? Your,

Sarah Davis 35:28

my partner, your partner life and my partner in the business?

Leighann Lovely 35:31

Okay, and what how did you you would send that you started this business because of you were at a, you know, event, but what got you like started? Obviously, you had a background had a background in this, right? Sure.

Sarah Davis 35:50

Yeah, a little bit, my partner has a lot more, my experience is more on the event side of things. And his is more on the emergency management side. So my background, my degree is in psychology, so I understand humans, I have a lot of experience in event planning around nonprofits, and then a lot of the nonprofit's I've worked with provided emergency services during emergency situations. And then more recently, I do have experience with emergency management with the Red Cross. And then my partner, his degree is in emergency management with innumerable experiences, and that roll off. So yeah,

Leighann Lovely 36:32

so you guys are right, exactly where you need to be.

Sarah Davis 36:36

I like to think so. Yeah, we have all the experience that we need. And we're, you know, we're willing to give that to people, we want it to help people make their events safer. We're not trying to get keep the information by any shape of the imagination. And like I said, you know, we we do this hands on, there are other companies out there that I, I will refer people to also, to get checklists, and some training, some online things, there are great companies out there. But if you're looking for that one on one approach, where you can actually ask questions, and be engaged in the process, and learn, then then that's where you, that's where you come to us, we make sure that we walk you through the process, and you will feel comfortable at your event and safe at your event.

Leighann Lovely 37:24

What do you think is the number one thing that you have come across when it comes to, you know, the threat?

Sarah Davis 37:35

So I'm gonna say it's two different things. So an actual threat, that's an all hazards concept that people don't think about is the weather, they don't really think about how that impacts an event. And I don't even mean necessarily injuries or your your actual attendees. But if you don't plan ahead, you might lose. You know, items, like when you're unloading things from a car, or you're trying to bring in your catering, right, things like that can all be impacted by the weather if you don't have a plan for it. Right. And I think whether is the lease plan for item, that, because people just think, Oh, well, if it's a tornado, I'll get in the bathroom, if you know, if it's a rainstorm, I'll run real quick, right? But you know, they don't really think about the impact of it. And that's something that we can we can all learn more on. And we can all plan a little bit better for. But I think the biggest barrier that people have, when planning is honestly the thought in their head. And I mentioned this maybe once or twice so far is people think it'll never happen to them. Yeah, or, more often I hear it well. I mean, the fire department signed off on capacity, and I'll just call 911. That's all we got to do, right? No, no, that is not all you have to do. And, and that, to me is kind of scary. When people are in that mentality. It's kind of like telling somebody they need therapy. You can't just go look somebody in the head and be like, you need therapy. They're gonna clam up and be like, No, right? That's not me. I'm, I'm perfectly fine, right? We all need therapy. We all need therapy, right? But you can't just go flick somebody in the head and be like, you need therapy. Right? Right. So it's the same thing with talking about safety at events. You can't just walk up to an event and be like, Wow, do you realize the unsafe things I see here, right. And so you have to go about it a little bit differently and educate through you know, social media, some different ways to get people to understand that they need the services and word of mouth. Word of mouth is a big key,

Leighann Lovely 39:53

right? Yeah. We are on a default setting of it'll never happen. And to me, you know, and a lot of events, you know, will say, we are having this event rain or you know, rain or shine, it's it's going to happen. And then, you know, you get out there and you're like, Wow, this is really not just rain, this is, you know, sideways, sideways, gusts of sheets of water that are hitting and pelting me in the face. And you realize maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

Sarah Davis 40:27

Right? Right. And in, those are the things that, you know, it'll make you second guessed going next year, versus if they would just say, you know, hey, our event is getting moved by a week, or we're canceling it, because of the weather because we want you to be safe, dry and happy. I'll go back the next year. If I go to an event where I'm a drowned rat, by the end, I'm gonna second guess, going next year, right?

Leighann Lovely 40:53

second guessing whether or not I want to sign up because it cost me you know, 100 bucks to go and I lose that money if I don't because it's rain or shine, shine or sun or water. I don't. Right. Right. Right. And that's it. Yeah. And in, in the state of well, and here's the other thing, people think, well, you know, I can call emergency services, but we here just recently experienced, you know, a storm in which calling Emergency Services wasn't an option, because we had trees down, like on every block. Sure. And they they were being called by everybody. Which means that there wasn't enough emergency services. I mean, it shut off. It took a month for them to clean up. It took two days for them to get the power back on this little tap was this last year? Yeah, yeah, I think it was last year, I was sitting in a pocket I live in in Franklin, Wisconsin, I was sitting in a pocket where we had no power for two days.

Sarah Davis 42:08

So, you know, if you're calling 911, every three hours wasn't gonna help? No. I mean, no, they can only have so many people working on electricity at any given point, correct?

Leighann Lovely 42:22

No, we were we were lucky that people were prepared. You know, and we didn't have you know, around. And I'm not talking about an event, I'm just talking about a huge individual, you know, individual huge. But if you were at an event during that time period, there was so much chaos happening all over the place that emergency services would not have helped at that point, because

Sarah Davis 42:49

you were not the priority. And event was not the priority when there were individuals, old young, whatever, there's, there's a triage impact of what happens when people call 911, right? People think it's when when large scale events happen, people think well, I called first they're gonna come to me first live in some fantasy world, go ahead. Well, you don't have power for two days, you could live in your fantasy, right? It doesn't work like that. They're going to help the older people, they're going to help the younger people, they're going to help the people that need to get out of their home, not the people that can stay there for a little bit without electricity. And, yeah, and also, I mean, we lived for centuries, upon centuries without electricity and running water in the house. You know, we need to start thinking about planning ahead and making sure that you have a few key elements in your house. So include, you don't have to cook. You know what I mean? Some food, well, sometimes gas doesn't get cut off. But sometimes that can throw a wrench in it too, when there's trees down and things like that. It can impact gas lines, and but you know, have water have, you know, bottles of water someplace that are easily accessible and things like that it can really make a difference.

Leighann Lovely 44:09

Yeah. Yep. Well, Sarah, this has been an awesome conversation. We're coming to time. So I want to ask you the question of the season. What do you Yes? I'm asking everybody this this season. What do you think will go down in the history book books from what the world has experienced over the last three years?

Sarah Davis 44:31

Okay. So I'm assuming we're beyond just talking about COVID and how we react to pandemics because I think the world learned a few lessons on that. But I'm going to say something that will go down in the history books from what we experienced over the last three years is that we we don't You need to have eight to five jobs to be successful in the world. And, and by that, I mean, so many people switched their their thought processes over, over COVID. But we started working remotely hybrid from home at night when the kids were asleep because we had to do school with them during the day. You know, a variety of things happened. And while a lot of people are trying to get us to go back into the, the office atmosphere, I don't think it's ever going to happen thoroughly. Again, I think we learned our lesson, that productivity does not mean clapping. And from eight to five.

Leighann Lovely 45:47

Awesome. Awesome. Excellent. So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?

Sarah Davis 45:54

Sure. So event safety plus.com. If you want to get to me directly, it's event safety plus.com backslash Sarah Sarah with an H. And that'll get you to all of my links. And then obviously, the website there, you can sign up for our services and send out that first consultation call.

Leighann Lovely 46:14

Excellent. Sarah, this has been such an amazing eye opening and education, educational conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and joining me today.

Sarah Davis 46:23

It was fun. And you were right. The Time flew. So I love it. Thank you. Yeah, you have a

Leighann Lovely 46:30

great day. You too. Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, event, plan, happen, talking, event planners, exits, tornado, year, experience, kid, emergency services, dog, call, responsibility, coming, tables, situation, started, cars