If you own your own concert venue, you probably know just how much fun and profitable it can be to host concerts and welcome guests onto your property. However, it is important for you to keep safety and security as a top priority, and you should understand that there is always a possibility that things can get out of hand when you gather a lot of exciting and possibly intoxicated individuals in one area to watch a concert. Therefore, you have to know how to enforce security measures during concerts in order to keep all of your patrons, staff members and yourself safe during your concerts and to maintain a reputation as a business owner who runs a clean, orderly and safe concert venue. By following these tips, you can help maintain order and enforce security measures during even the biggest of concerts.
Post Your Rules Online Ahead of Time
Letting everyone know about the rules that you have in place before the concert even begins is one good way to let people know that you are serious about maintaining order and security at your venue. Along with posting a list of rules and guidelines on your website, it is also a good idea to post printed copies near the entrances. You can even add a tagline with the most important rules on any flyers or other promotional materials prior to hosting your concerts. Letting everyone know how you expect for things to be done at your venue is only fair, and you might be surprised by just how many people it will deter from trying to break your rules and bring bad things and ideas into your venue.
Hire Security Guards Carefully
Hiring security guards is an essential. No matter how dedicated you are to promoting and maintaining security at your venue, there is no way that you and a small group of staff members can keep things under control when your venue gets busy. Therefore, you have to make sure that you hire security guards to help with these matters so that you can worry about other aspects of running your business during a concert.
You shouldn’t just hire the first security guards that you come across, however. If you do, you might end up with inexperienced individuals who don’t know much about how to keep an orderly concert venue. Instead, look for people who have experience in these matters if at all possible. You can look to hire individual security guards if you prefer, but another great option is to contact a security guard company to find out about hiring a crew to work your venue. If you decide to go this route, you can pay one flat fee to the company, and it will worry about finding and training security guards and providing them with the necessary uniforms and equipment. Then, all you have to worry about is paying for these guards and letting them know where your venue is and when your concert will be held. Although this can be a great option for one-day concerts, hiring your own crew might be preferable if you host a lot of concerts at your venue, and you can actually save money by doing so as well.
Make Sure That You Have Enough Security Guards
Hiring security guards to handle the security at your venue isn’t going to be enough. You also have to make sure that you have a sufficient amount of security guards to handle things; otherwise, the guards who are on duty might not be able to handle everything. Estimating the number of people who will be at your event is one good way to determine how many guards that you need, and you also have to take the size of your venue into consideration. If you are hosting the concert indoors in a relatively small building, for instance, you won’t need as many security guards as you will need if you are hosting a huge outdoor music festival at a very large venue. If you talk to someone from a security guard company and give them estimations of the size of your venue, the type of venue that you are running and the approximate number of people who will be attending your concert, however, someone from the company can probably give you a better idea of how many security guards you will need to hire.
Train Your Security Guards Well
Simply dressing a few large men up in uniforms and telling everyone that they are security guards won’t be sufficient if you really want to keep your concert venue safe and secure. Although it might fool some people into behaving and acting in an orderly fashion, others will want to try these guards out if they know that they aren’t well-trained. Therefore, it is important to send your security guards to training classes; if at all possible, try to send them to a type of training that will cover the bases about handling security at a concert venue. This is another reason why you might decide it is preferential to hire professional security guards from a security guard company. You can also screen any potential security guards to find out if they have experience in handling the security at these types of venues.
Monitor the Doors
One of the best ways to keep bad things out of your concert venue is to do a thorough check of the people who are entering it before they ever make it through the door. Although some people don’t particularly like to go through metal detectors, enforcing this type of security is one of the top ways that you can keep bad things and bad people from getting into your concert venue.
First of all, consider utilizing metal detectors. You can have everyone walk through a large metal detector that goes over everyone’s heads, or you can have your security guards use a wand to check for weapons. If your security guards find weapons, they can choose to either ask the individual to put them in their vehicles before entering the venue or ask them to leave. For small things, like pocket knives, you are probably safe to simply ask them to leave the item in their car. For larger and more serious weapons, however, you might decide that you don’t want their owners to enter your concert venue at all. When security guards are checking for weapons, make sure that they check carefully. Some people try to be clever by hiding weapons in their boots or elsewhere on their person, and it is important to catch these weapons before they ever make it in the door.
Along with using metal detectors to check for weapons, you should consider having your security guards look for other potential problems as well. For instance, you might decide that you don’t want to let overly intoxicated individuals into your venue because of the problems that they can cause and the trouble that you can potentially get into with alcohol enforcement agents. Those who seem to be violent can also pose a problem, and you might want to look for things like gang-related clothing when determining who can or can’t get into your venue.
Keep Watch on the Parking Lot
Along with being cautious about keeping an eye on your venue’s entrances and what is actually going on inside your venue during the concert, you should also consider keeping a close eye on the parking lot. People tend to get in fights and cause other problems in parking areas at concerts, and there is also a chance that people will be drinking or using drugs in their cars. You don’t want this type of behavior to be going on in the parking area of your venue, so consider posting surveillance cameras in the parking lot as well as inside the venue and hiring security guards who are specifically assigned to watch the parking lot. Doing so will not only help cut down on problems, but it can even help prevent car thefts and other similar crimes that sometimes occur outside of these concert venues.
Keep an Eye On Things Yourself With Surveillance Cameras
Hiring security guards is a great way to keep an eye on your venue, but one thing that you shouldn’t pass up is to utilize surveillance cameras in order to keep an eye on what is going on in and around your concert venue. There are lots of surveillance cameras on the market that are perfect for both indoor and outdoor use, so you shouldn’t have a difficult time finding the equipment that you need.
Installing surveillance cameras at the entrances to your venue will help you help your security guards while they are monitoring the people who enter your venue. It will also allow you to keep tabs on who has gone in and out before, during and after the concert.
Posting surveillance cameras in various areas around your venue can also help you prevent problems. Make sure that you have cameras in both prominent areas and in hidden corners and other places where issues could arise, and make sure that your cameras are high-quality and that they capture good footage of everything that is going on during the concert. Along with helping deter people from committing crimes, breaking rules and causing other security-related issues simply by being there, these cameras can also make it easier for you and your security guards to see what is going on everywhere in the venue and can provide you with valuable physical proof in the event that something happens and you need to contact local law enforcement agents, press charges against someone or simply kick them out of your venue for the rules that they have broken.
Enforce Rules Properly
One of the main things that you can do in order to enforce security measures during concerts is to handle security-related issues right away. If you get a reputation for letting things slide, people will try to get away with a lot more. If you make it known that you have rules in place and that you don’t put up with people breaking them, however, a lot of people will be less likely to break the rules because they won’t want to get kicked out of your venue and because they won’t want to get in trouble with the law. This means that you might sometimes have to be the “bad guy,” but it will be worth it in the long run because you will have a much safer venue; overall, this will help you bring in more concert guests because people will feel safer at your venue and won’t think that things will get out of control, and it will help prevent you from breaking any laws, getting in trouble or getting involved in confrontations.
Don’t Be Afraid to Call the Police
If you have security measures well taken care of and have both high-quality surveillance cameras and well-trained security guards posted around your venue, you probably won’t have to worry about calling the police too often. However, you shouldn’t be afraid to call the police if you need to. If someone is breaking the law in your concert venue or if things seem out of control and you feel as if you will have a difficult time restoring order on your own or with the assistance of your security guards, you should certainly call your local law enforcement officers to see if you can get some assistance. it might even be a good idea to call and let you local police department know about big concerts that will be held at your venue so that they can keep an eye on things and even keep someone around who can help you if things escalate and get out of hand while the concert is going on. By following all of these tips, you can help maintain safety and security at your concert venue, no matter how big your concert might be.
