Do you know how Health and Safety Legislation and best practice is applied in the Events industry, particularly at exhibitions and trade fairs?
This week I was working with a client at the London Excel. This client builds exhibition stands for their client, who will be exhibiting at this amazing venue. I witnessed some terrible practice, not by my client obviously…
The events industry presents many hazards that must be managed that the average person attending would not consider, and why would they? All they see is when attending an exhibition is a beautiful stand showcasing what they are selling to the market, and to be honest, this is all they really care about. This article talks about what legislation is applicable pre, and post event and not the exhibition itself.
So, what legislation is applicable to a business building exhibition stands? CDM. That’s right, the Construction (Design & Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM) applies to the event industry. To put simply, the teams responsible for building the stand and then dismantling it at the end of the event must apply the same legislation that applies to building a house or renovating a school for example.
The CDM regs do set out certain responsibilities within them that different parties are assigned to. But it can be confusing when applied to building a stand at an exhibition. However, the same rules apply and ultimately there will be a Client, a Principle Contractor and a Principal Designer. The HSE have published some guidance on this which outlines how this can be applied and who will assume these responsibilities. They have also developed a worked example of how it might look in a worked scenario.
Responsibilities aside, when building these expo stands, all persons should be applying the regulations and best practices found within CDM. In a nutshell, this is the terrible practice witnessed during my time at London Excel:
- Lack of induction/authority to work. You are given a band to display on your wrist or vest to authorise you being there. I was passed this with no checks whatsoever. They didn’t ask who I was let alone ask where I was working, and which stand we were going to work on. It was a free for all to just, crack on!
- Working at height.
- MEWPS being used with no harnesses being worn and zero control/banksman being used. People segregation was non-existent.
- Step ladders being used with individuals straddling the top steps and leaning out to fix timbers.
- Dust control. Teams using circular saws to cut timber with no on tool extraction or RPE.
- Electrical safety. During the event build the stands have no power and most teams have battery powered tools. However, teams were testing lighting or charging batteries and 240v extensions were plugged into extensions, then other extensions to span across walkways.
- People & Plant/vehicle/Forklift/MEWP interface. Non-existent… No marshals and nobody cared.
The events industry is full of high hazard activity, especially during the infrastructure build and de-rig. It’s important the risks are managed and documented in the form of a risk assessment and the control measures identified are applied. Remember, CDM does state that competent tradesmen must be used with suitable supervision where required and after the last couple of days, some teams need to re-visit their controls…
