LESSONS LEARNED FROM LAS VEGAS

Most venues, if not all, have strict procedures in place for ingress — hand wanding or metal detectors, bag checks and Vapor Wake bomb-sniffing dogs are now standard best practice at any large assembly. But in the aftermath of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, perpetrated by a lone gunman from the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay Hotel & Resort, Las Vegas, killing 59 and injuring more than 500 at the Route 91 Harvest music festival, protecting guests from outside forces has become the focus.
Shelly Greenberg, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in the department of public safety leadership, said the emotional reaction could “lead to calls for remedies that likely aren’t realistic and could waste millions of dollars.”
“It’s still a matter of proper planning, training and resourcing,” said Ben Tolle, co-founder, Prevent Advisors. “The way to mitigate risk is to do the basics well.”
“Loss of life and damage to property are reduced as a function of advanced analysis and planning,” he said. “These types of events are chaotic. A trained staff and well rehearsed response are critical to reducing loss. The ability to communicate effectively with guests, staff and first responders is of the utmost importance.”
“The philosophical view has not changed; that said we are a learning organization,” Tolle continued. “Specific to the Las Vegas event, there’s still much detail to consider. With that, I am confident much will be learned as well.”
Tolle said an excellent way for venues to protect themselves from threats outside the venue is through deliberate collaboration with all the buildings and stakeholders throughout the area.
“All venues are part of a broader ecosystem,” said Tolle. “Prior planning, coordination, sharing of information, training and rehearsals among all the relevant stakeholders is a very good way to diminish risk.”
There’s always risk associated with external factors and people outside the venue, he said. “While risk will always be present, we can work together to manage it.”
Despite the circumstances of the Vegas shooting, Tolle said that skyscrapers are not the biggest threat to venue security.
"It’s bad actors,” he said. “People need to be cognizant of that. The primary threats are nasty people — criminals, insider types or terrorists.  We are still working to reduce the impact of bad people. ”
The threats have always been present; the schematics may change but we have to use our resources accordingly, he said.
Tolle said that the biggest changes to the venue industry that he foresees following Vegas are that “I expect artists will be more aware of the level of safety and security measures present in the sites they play."
“Productions will be more inquisitive about the policies and procedures that are in place at the facilities,” he said. “Any time there is tragedy of the Las Vegas scale, people will evaluate their risk going forward.”
Tolle does not foresee this event putting a particular focus on exposed, outdoor venues. “It’s about recognizing that this level of violence is here,” he said. “People often focus only on the mechanism of violence. It’s really the frequency and outcomes that should capture people’s attention.”
Still, venue security experts are looking at outside threats in a new light.
“As security checkpoints at concerts and sporting events have become more rigorous, the Las Vegas shooting has shown us that people who want to do harm are now focusing on areas outside the security perimeter,” said Randy Sutton, who spent 24 years with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. “It’s not possible to have security covering everything. When we have skyscrapers looming next to open-air venues, there is going to be a risk of an incident.”
Russ Simons, Venue Solutions Group, who is chairman of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Public Assembly Facility Sub-Sector Council and serves on the IAVM Safety & Security Committee and NCS4 (National Center for Spectator, Sport, Safety and Security) board of advisors, noted the mass killing in Las Vegas reinforces the need to do a threat assessment and vulnerability to that threat constantly.
“That leads to a risk assessment and from that you get your emergency action plan,” said Simons. “I don’t think anyone would have weighed gunfire from a significant distance and, by the way, from as high a level as this was as a threat to an event like a country music festival.”
This does not change the game for venue managers, it just increases the volume of the message. “Venue managers will be doing what they’ve done every day for 17 years, since 9/11, which is taking a look at what the circumstances are on the ground, not being comfortable with what you knew yesterday, and knowing you have to think about what the situation will be for you tomorrow. Every professional venue manager knows that complacency as it relates to safety and security is our biggest enemy, and we have to focus on the changing nature of the threat and our response. That has to do with that emergency action plan, training, execution, evaluation and retraining.”
Simons strongest message is one of personal responsibility.  “We can’t afford to rely on someone else to take care of us. We have to pay attention and think about where we’re going and assess our situation.
See something, say something is not just a tagline, he added. “We all have an obligation and a responsibility to be paying attention, and if we see things that make us uncomfortable or we don’t understand, we have to bring those things to someone’s attention. All of us are better than any one of us.