Managing Health and Safety at Trade Shows
Managing health and safety at Trade Shows involves meticulous planning to ensure you keep yourselves and others safe. From checking local regulations to ensuring you have all the correct paperwork, this blog is designed to highlight the importance of health and safety at Trade Shows and why you need to have a watertight plan for this whether you are the one exhibiting or even hosting the event itself.
Understanding Health and Safety Regulations
Health and safety regulations are in place to keep everyone as safe as possible. Every country that you visit and every exhibition hall you trade in will have their own set of H&S regulations which you must adhere to so it is worth doing your research. You can even touch base with the correct people in advance to get clarification on the regulations you will have to follow during your time at their show to ensure your own plan falls in line with their regulations.
Designing safe exhibition stands
Whilst your immediate criteria for an exhibition stand will be the obvious things like eye-catching, bold and attractive, you should be mindful about safety when going about bringing your design to life. For every event, there will be a manual sent to you as the exhibitor that you can share with your contractor, this will highlight the stand build regulations that your chosen stand designer and builder will need to adhere to when designing and building the stand. This will include regulations around wall heights, hanging structure, platform heights and more.
Following these regulations is essential, although you will also need to consider other things that may not be included such as what sort of weight can your structures/ plinths/counters/shelves hold. If you have particularly heavy products/screens etc, you need to ensure that your stand is designed with structural integrity.
Risk assessment
One of the most important things you need to do is conduct a thorough risk assessment highlighting the potential hazards, your evaluation of these and your solution to control these hazards which, in turn, will lower the risk of danger to everyone involved (your staff, attendees, other trade show exhibitors, the exhibition hall and their staff etc). You need to identify trip hazards, hazardous materials, electrics and their installation, any low hanging features, potential risks to staff, any potential risks surrounding your stand etc. This is arguably the most important part of your approach to the overall health and safety plan as it shows that you have identified key risks and have put a plan of action in place to minimise the likelihood of these things becoming a threat to the safety/health of others, especially in the unlikely event that things were to go wrong.
Your stand builder will also need to create their own risk assessment so cover any potential hazards during build up and breakdown.
Training staff on safety protocols
Your staff are the face of your business and the first port of call for attendees on the day of the trade show so they have a responsibility for their safety and the safety of those around them. The business must ensure that the floor staff are briefed on your health and safety protocols as well as the venue’s safety protocols (such as fire assembly points) and who to report any issues or emergencies to.
Staff must also be briefed on what to wear and how to dress on the day especially if there are any specific requirements of the venue such as wearing hi-vis, hard hats or any other safety workwear especially when installing and ripping out your stand. You should always utilise all of the time you have access to the venue to ensure everyone involved is on the same page and briefed correctly.
Preparations in case of emergencies
Whilst there are some emergencies which happen unexpectedly, most emergency situations can be handled with the proper preparation. Your risk assessment should highlight situations such as fires, water damage, medical emergencies and what your plan of action is to deal with this. Exhibition halls normally have a phone with instructions to follow to alert the correct people in case of an emergency and you can check whether they have a dedicated first aid area and defibrillator.
You can also equip your stand with a multipurpose fire extinguisher, buckets in case of a water leak and choosing staff members who are first aid trained to man your stand in case of a medical emergency. It is also important that you have somebody who is first aid trained as part of your team on your stand.
Engaging with venue authorities
Prior to exhibiting, it is always beneficial to communicate with venue organisers to determine who you need to contact in case of an emergency. As said above, venues normally have a house phone for you to use to alert the correct person/persons to an emergency situation and you need to brief staff on the correct protocol and decorum to engage with the authoritative figures at the venue to ensure the situation is managed correctly.
Monitoring and reporting incidents
Any incidents that occur should be recorded and discussed internally when evaluating your performance at the show. You should first refer to your risk assessment to see if this was highlighted as a potential risk and then go on to discuss what happened, what protocols were followed and how the issue was resolved. You can also evaluate how much time was spent resolving the issue and suggest any ways you can solve this more efficiently in the future.
If the incident involved the venue (i.e leaky roof or a fire not on a stand), you can send your report to the venue and show organisers to inform them of the incident. In the report you can include your actions to resolve the issue and ask them for any preventative measures they will be implementing in the future. Then, you can consider this when revisiting the venue and carrying out your own risk assessments and health and safety checks.
No matter what trade show you are attending, you will always be required to adhere to health and safety protocols. A lot of stand related health and safety points should be picked up by your stand builder, but it pays to be prepared so make sure you have a detailed plan for your next exhibition. Hopefully, these tips will give you a good starting point when it comes to managing health and safety at trade shows. If you’re considering exhibiting, we’re here to help! Contact us for more information.