Background
Alliance enjoyed returning to Tofte Manor for our second year of Labyrinth Events at the venue. Over 2 weekends in July, the beautiful 17th century manor house set in the Bedfordshire countryside was bustling with guests to see a variety of music performances from the likes of Fatboy slim, Adriatique, Annie Mac & Jungle.
The shows put on by labyrinth events make use of the site due to its natural setting
and links to physical labyrinths in the grounds that customers can walk, allowing a
connection to serene peace and inspiration.
The manor held an arena capacity of 3,500 people and with private grounds further
to this hosting the production teams, promoters, artists and residents of the manor. We delivered this event with our clients at We Are The Fair!
Our services:
Head of security, security manager, security supervisors, SIA & Steward
provision
Security management
Security control
Entrance search lanes
Patrol teams
Response teams
Static Guards
Fire Exit coverage
Crowd management
Egress crowd management
Build and break teams
Overnight Security
Access Control
Achievements / Challenges:
Ingress and Egress patterns
Weather and ground conditions
Thief caught and detained
Ingress and Egress patterns:
Due to the nature and location of the event, there were many ticket holders attending
from further afield, with transport provision from London provided by event
organisers in the form of coaches. This generous provision meant that upon ingress
and egress there were several factors to consider for both customers and our teams
guiding them; what type of transport had been used, which gate they had entered
from on the site and what their destination was. Our teams were put in place in key
locations across all exits and entrances covering Two coach pick-ups, (one for
London & one for Bedford), a pedestrian exit, a taxi and private hire pick up and drop
off route and an on-site car park.
We deployed SIA licensed operatives to assist the traffic teams in key locations to
ensure pedestrian and vehicle traffic were separated wherever possible and
stewarding teams were providing clear and concise directions for all egress routes.
Dynamic changes were made at the end of each day of the event based on factors
such as weather, number of attendees, required exits and ground conditions as well.
Weather & Ground Conditions:
As stated above the weather and ground conditions especially for the event led to
some dynamic changes to egress plans and to site build up and breakdown both pre
& post live event.
Due to heavy rainfall during the build-up to the show the grassy hill leading up to the
arena from the production area became waterlogged and muddy and with increased
traffic from plant and machinery led to it becoming inaccessible on certain days, thus
requiring more stringent controls, only allowing vehicles with both an imperative need
and physical capability to access to the site.
On one evening of the event, it was also decided that the hill remained too
hazardous for customer egress with an increased potential for slips and falls and we
therefore deployed stewards and patrol teams to redirect customers to a safer exit.
Thief Caught and Detained:
Our patrol teams were called to speak to a male that had made his way around the
back of the medical tent, a private area of the site. Upon inspection, the male was
identified as someone who had already raised suspicion for being agitated when
speaking to security staff earlier in the day.
One of our security team with a keen eye spotted that the gentleman’s bag was also
now very full when it had not been earlier on.The gentleman became defensive when asked to open said bag and was therefore formally detained with no requirement for any use of force as we simultaneously requested a police presence due to suspicion of potential theft.
The male elected to open the bag and show us the contents following this, which
exhibited a high number of t shirts missing from the merchandise stand.
The contents were removed and returned to their rightful owners and the male was
ejected from the site into police care who handled his exit from this point onwards.
Conclusion:
Our team worked on the build-up, live event and breakdown of the show, seeing it
through start to finish and enjoying yet another experience with our We Are The Fair
production partners. The show itself hosted several incredible artists in the grounds
of a beautiful country manor house and was something a little different for our teams.
The ingress and egress were well managed across all available platforms for ticket
holders, and we supported coach teams, traffic teams and production teams in the
management of customer use of specific transport provisions.
The event was a great success, and some of us even got to catch the England Euros
football final on the big screen at the main stage … (if only they’d been equally
successful)!
We look forward to both seeing what Labyrinth events do next and to deploying our
staff at another of their events in the future.
