Festival season is a busy time for SAFECROWDS and a recent festival deployment in South East London called upon a wide range of our integrated security services, along with our knowledge of the festivals sector and nighttime economy experience.

With 5000 festival goers expected to attend, we worked closely with the festival organisers and the local authority in the run up to the event, advising on security considerations and helping them to put a plan in place that considered security, safety and community risk factors.

We deployed a large team with a mix of skills, qualifications and experience for the festival, including detection and security dogs and their handlers. We also provided technology solutions, including mobile CCTV equipment and monitoring personnel, screening equipment for body searches, and body cams for our SIA licensed security personnel and response teams.

We began the day with a team briefing, ensuring that every member of the team was fully aware of the risk assessment and their roles and responsibilities. Our K9 detection dogs and handlers carried out a sweep of the location and the detection dog teams were then deployed at the entrance to the festival to check for drugs or explosives as festival goers arrived.

With barriers set up to manage ingress, SAFECROWDS front of house teams were located at the entrance to the event to carry out bag checks and body searches as people arrived, and to check tickets and hand out wristbands.

Our security, response, stewarding and safeguarding teams were strategically located at key points throughout the festival site, and members of our team were circulating within the crowd throughout the event to maintain security and be on hand if anyone needed help. All our teams wore uniform with our logo and their clearly indicated across their back, providing a visible and reassuring presence.

Our mobile CCTV vans were also located at strategic points and the cameras were monitored for signs of security breaches or safety issues throughout the event. Meanwhile, our K9 security teams patrolled the festival site perimeter throughout the event.

As part of the event and security planning process, it had been agreed that entrance to the festival site would be closed at 7pm, with no ticket holders permitted to attend after that time. Despite this being clearly communicated to ticket holders, a group did try to gain entry after 7pm, becoming aggressive as it became clear that our security teams would not permit entry. Our operations team responded quickly, communicating the incident to trained personnel located across the site, bring them to the entry point to ensure that we had a significant physical presence to secure the site. The way in which we handled the incident was praised by both the festival organisers and the Police.