The following article was originally published by Wenger Corporation on its performing arts blog.

Over three weeks we’re examining security in performing arts centers from different angles: operations, planning and training. First we focused on the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas; second we reviewed planning from the perspectives of a theatre consultant and security expert. Finally this week we focus on effective training.

“Because of the crowd dynamic at performing arts facilities, there hasn’t been a lot of terrorism or criminal activity,” says Mark Herrera, Director of Education with the IAVM. A former law enforcement officer, he also represents public assembly facilities for committees of the National Fire Protection Association and Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“These venues are considered soft targets by DHS, and all soft targets are increasingly becoming targets of choice,” he adds. “At IAVM we are working to stay ahead of the curve by being very proactive with security in performing arts facilities.”

These measures include considering the building’s physical structure, layout and landscaping, along with deploying warning and scanning technology. But Herrera considers all those just Band-Aids: necessary but secondary in importance.

Watching Baseline. “All the tools you provide are only as good as the people using them,” he explains. “Facilities need to emphasize training all their key stakeholders and staff – to provide everyone with exceptional focus, performance and control in extreme situations.”

After 9/11, Herrera worked for DHS, training armed personnel how to regain control of a hijacked aircraft. Herrera says any crowd of people has a certain behavioral baseline – how people act and conduct themselves – that’s observable. Whether preventing hijackings or attacks on performing arts facilities, the solution starts with spotting the potential threat beforehand.

“We’ve brought these ideas from aircraft safety down to ground level,” Herrera notes. “If you notice an anomaly among the crowd, you can predict that person will likely cross a threshold and commit some type of disruptive or violent action,” he explains. “But by intervening first, you can possibly deter these plans.”

Herrera says the front-line staff who work at a facility’s exterior perimeters perform key roles as “eyes and ears” because those areas are usually where the threat will be initially staged.

“Those employees may feel their jobs are less important – monitoring the traffic or walking the parking lot – but we need to teach them the value they can provide,” advises Herrera. “It’s all about situational awareness.”

This includes training guest services personnel to continually scan the environment for challenges and potential danger, all while performing their regular duties.

Increasing Motivation. For venue managers who want front-line staff to realize the value of their role, Herrera recommends reality-based training. “In a controlled environment, show a devastating outcome and explain how their negligence, oversight or inability enabled that catastrophic event to happen,” he contends.

Along with providing employees with proper tools and effective training, managers should continually reinforce the employees’ importance through rewards and recognition.

Herrera recommends debriefing meetings after every event, where staff are required to share “near-miss reports” about activities and circumstances that could have been handled better. “I’d ask each employee to list five things – in either guest service or security – that were unusual or challenging,” he explains. “These are situations where nothing bad happened, but where a negative outcome might have occurred.”

 During debriefing discussions, staff can brainstorm – not point fingers – and strategize alternative responses in the future. Employees are recognized for their contributions; such meetings become the foundation for learning and improvements.

After a period of time, perhaps a year, these debriefing meetings might be suspended, because employees will have become conditioned for situational awareness and constant vigilance. The resulting benefits will continue long into the future.

5 Steps for Venue Managers. For instilling best security practices in PACs or other venues, Herrera recommends these five steps:

1) Conduct baseline risk assessment of the venue. Using an accepted risk methodology, prioritize possible threats by analyzing their likelihood and consequences. Re-evaluate risks after any major crisis or adverse event at other facilities.

2) Develop scalable, practical security program. Incorporate people, technology and procedures to detect, deter and defend against threats, focusing on risks with the highest likelihood and worst consequences.

3) Select and train security staff. Vet a workforce with knowledge, skills and abilities to implement security program and adapt as needed in an ever-changing risk environment.

4) Manage communications. Coordinate with internal staff and stakeholders, along with local, state and federal agencies. Invite these agencies for on-site training.

5) Train staff continuously. Repetition aids recall, making the proper response automatic and instantaneous.

Training the Industry. Next month in Dallas, the IAVM will hold its annual Academy for Venue Safety & Security (AVSS), designed to train venue and event managers, security professionals and other key personnel involved in venue safety and security. AVSS is a two-year school divided into two week-long sessions held a year apart. Four key disciplines are covered: emergency management, risk management, operations and training.

Outside of the formal AVSS curriculum, Herrera says IAVM’s regular conferences and events also provide members and others in the industry the opportunity to receive security training from leading experts.

“I always tell people that we don’t want to live in a bubble,” concludes Herrera. “We want to stay ahead of today’s threats – and tomorrow’s – with a strong plan, effective training and proactive involvement of all the key stakeholders, from the administrative level all the way down.”
 

The past and future for the Performing Arts Managers Conference was served up along with lunch on Tuesday as the conference hit the mid-point of this year’s 25th anniversary celebration at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel in Chicago.

After Committee Chair Larry Henley gave a recount of the cities that have hosted PAMC and recognized Wenger as a sponsor for the conference’s existence, he called on Robyn Williams and Rip Rippetoe to share some experiences from having attended all 25 years.

“At our first one in Chicago in 1992, we had maybe 75 people,” Williams said. “We were calling people … are you coming? Will you be on a panel? I had quit smoking and went outside in front of the Chicago Theatre and bummed a cigarette, I was so stressed.”

“We didn’t even have a budget,” added Rippetoe. “We didn’t have badges, either. We had the peel ones that said, Hello, my name is …”

As this year’s attendance totaled 344, Williams acknowledged that, “This didn’t happen because of us. It happened because of you coming back year after year.”

IAVM Director of Development Meredith Merritt praised the sector for making donations possible for five individuals to receive  2017 Joseph A. Floreano Scholarships + Internship Programs.  She thanked Ungerboeck Software, WJHW, and Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architects for their generous donations toward the scholarships.

PAMC excels at numbers, so it was no surprise when Merritt noted that the group’s goal for sponsors this year was $93,000 and was easily topped at $151,480.

After the deserved applause died down, Merritt said that since 1997 the sector has raised $1,233,453, from Professional and Allied members for the IAVM Foundation, a figure representing more than one-third of the total of $3,206,453 raised since that time by all sectors combined.

IAVM Director of Meetings Bill Jenkins concluded with a presentation of the association’s conference strategy heading into VenueConnect 2017 from August 7-10 in Nashville. It will mark the next opportunity for the PAMC to be held as all sector meetings now officially roll into VenueConnect.

A video on Nashville then played to wrap up a session in which PAMC was not only celebrated but raises a toast to a proud and thriving sector.

For every naysayer who forecasts the demise of live entertainment due to the 24/7 presence of social media and other convenient distractions, Peter Sagal, NPR host and keynote speaker at the Performing Arts Managers Conference, says to tap the brakes on all the negativity.

“Guess where a lot of the content comes from for all who are on social media?” he asked a full ballroom of PAMC attendees in Chicago. “It comes from live events.”

The message was just one nugget that Sagal entertained and educated the audience with.

Sagal does 615 Wait, Wait .., Don’t Tell Me shows, a number that started at nine when the radio show premiered in 1998.

“Crowds want to be part of something real,” Sagal said. “For a radio audience, audio is dependent on intimacy. Television is a screen, a window, a barrier. Radio is somebody talking to you, often in the most private places like your kitchen, your car, or on your headphones while you exercise.”

Sagal goes back to how technology has impacted the live experience. He cites all our phones can do as an example.

“Really, they create a greater need for what I do,” he said. “We are all connected and yet all isolated. We participate in other moments at other times. Thus, the need for live performance and connection is even more profound. That bodes well for your business and mine.”

While Sagal said he could not predict the future, he still finds himself flummoxed by the present.

“People actually come to our show to sit and listen to me,” he joked. “I mean, this is all they get.”

It has obviously been enough for generations of loyal followers who also believe in the live experience.

The International Association of Venue Managers has named Amy Fitzpatrick as the organization’s new Director of Marketing. Amy joined the team on February 27, 2017.  She was previously the Graduate Program Coordinator for the School of Kinesiology, Recreation, and Sport at Western Kentucky University, where six years ago she helped to develop a partnership between WKU and IAVM. 

Now, the creation of that partnership has brought her here to Texas, and she is eager to learn more about the world of IAVM.

“I look at this as a learning experience,” Amy says. “I know the organization from the standpoint of being an affiliate from the outside looking in. Now I can see the magnitude of this organization and how IAVM not only educates people within the field, but also the way that they take the trends of the profession and disseminate that information. Normally in this type of professional setting you would probably have more than 100 employees that are doing what this small group of people are doing, and the fact that they do it, and they do it well, just amazes me.”

Amy has already adopted the IAVM brand promise and looks forward to sharing the inspiration, expertise, and connections that the association brings to the table.

“We never stop learning and we never stop growing, and that’s one of the things that I love about IAVM. They believe in that. They inspire people to get them to learn and to make them want to continue on in their field. This is where my passion lies. It’s getting people informed, making sure that they are making the right decisions for their professional career. ”

Born and raised in Bowling Green, Kentucky, it’s only fitting that Amy attended Western Kentucky University, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies, with a minor in English, her Master of Public Administration, and her Master of Science in Recreation and Sport Administration. WKU is also where she spent much of her professional career, until now, where the IAVM team welcomes her with open arms.

When IAVM Junior Designer Jamie Carney submitted an entry into Association Trends Magazine’s Salute to Excellence Awards in the category of Daily or Weekly Communication for her work in the creative of the redesign of the IAVM News newsletter, she did so with the confidence that there could be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow once the winners were selected in Washington, D.C. last Thursday.

“Definitely,” Carney said. “I thought I had a shot. I was just really excited about having a chance to redesign the newsletter. Given an opportunity to do that was good.”

It turned out to be more than good for Carney, who along with IAVM Director of Marketplace Sales Christy Jacobs was present for the gala. Having already been named a finalist due to receive a gold, silver or bronze award, Carney and Jacobs watched as IAVM’s name did not show up on the screen for the silver and bronze categories. That was when reality sunk in and the celebration began.

“They did the categories in alphabetical order,” Carney said. “When they got to our category, my heart started racing. I put my hand on Christy’s shoulder like, oh my gosh, this is it. We saw the first slide pop up and we weren’t on there, so I started slapping her arm because I was so excited. We weren’t on the screen so I knew that it was going to be the gold. Everyone at our table kind of looked at me funny and was really excited about it. It was really cool.”

And really cool describes the fortune that IAVM has with the talented and exuberant Carney. A graduate of Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, with a major in graphic design, IAVM is Carney’s first post-graduate position and one in which she has already made her mark.

As for the idea of submitting an entry, Carney said that took place last October, just months after her hire in April of last year.

“I talked to Christy about a redesign after we got back from VenueConnect,” she said. “It was after we got our new logo and had a new brand. We had an outdated newsletter that did not work with our brand. I wanted to make it look cleaner, reflect the brand, and overall more readable. It is important to give our members all of the information that they want every week from IAVM.”

Consider that mission accomplished with plenty encores certain to be a part of the talented Carney’s future.