The Event Safety Podcast

Co-host Anna Glover joins Danielle Hernandez to explore a topic that sits at the heart of everything we do in live events: how do you make good decisions when you can't know the outcome?

Their guest, Ben Cattaneo, is a risk and resilience professional, host of the Decision-Making Studio podcast, and co-author of "Decision Making in the Polycrisis Era". Ben opens by drawing a clear line between risk (where we can estimate probability) and uncertainty (where we genuinely can't) and argues that leaning into uncertainty as a frame produces better thinking than treating every scenario as a quantifiable risk. Risk matrices can create a false sense of security.  

Using a FOCUS framework to help guide decision making, the discussion explores the process and tools available to make a decision, including knowing how impactful the result may be to live with, i.e., a hat (fully reversible), a haircut (you'll live with it for a while), or a tattoo (irreversible).

What happens when the moment arrives and people get cold feet about the decision they already agreed to make? The answer, Ben says: document the how and the why before the pressure hits, so you can defend a difficult decision without having to reconstruct your reasoning under stress.

The episode closes with Anna and Ben connecting all of it back to live events as an environment for building decision-making capability. Every show is a new data point, every load-in a chance to practice.

Hosts:

Danielle Hernandez (host)

Anna Glover (co-host)

Guests:

Ben Cattaneo | Risk and Resilience Practice, PwC; Host, Decision Making Studio Podcast

Show Notes:

Decision Making Studio Podcast | https://thedecisionmaking.studio

Decision Making in the Polycrisis Era (book) | Available on major book retailers

ESA Safer Events Series - Weather | https://eventsafetyalliance.org/safer-events-series

Contact Danielle | [email protected]

Episode 116: Survey Says... Weather with DTN!

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Weather is the leading disruptor of live events, and the industry's relationship with weather intelligence has matured significantly over the past decade. Danielle Hernandez and co-host Tami Richter sit down with Renny Vandewege, General Manager of Weather Intelligence at DTN, to dig into the results of a major industry survey DTN conducted on how event organizers are making weather-related decisions.

Renny walks through DTN's approach, explaining how they've evolved from pure forecasting into what they call an operational decisioning platform. The conversation covers range rings, event-specific trigger thresholds, high-precision lightning and radar data, wet bulb globe temperature for heat safety, and the critical value of having a meteorologist in the loop. A static range ring only triggers after a lightning strike has occurred. A meteorologist can warn you before the first strike happens.

The survey findings are illuminating. Most event weather decisions are made within 48 hours of the event, often in the moment, and decision makers frequently struggle to translate forecast data into action alone.   

The industry has come a long way, but that the work is not finished and DTN's survey helps show the way forward.

Hosts:

Danielle Hernandez (host)   Tami Richter (co-host)

Guest:

Renny Vandewege | General Manager of Weather Intelligence, DTN 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/renny-vandewege-8b0aa735/

Show Notes:

DTN Outdoor Safety | https://www.dtn.com

https://www.dtn.com/weather-risks-in-event-operations/

https://training.fema.gov/nims/

ESA Safer Events Series - Weather | https://eventsafetyalliance.org/safer-events-series

Contact Danielle | [email protected]

Episode 116: Survey Says... Weather with DTN!

----------------------------------------

Weather is the leading disruptor of live events, and the industry's relationship with weather intelligence has matured significantly over the past decade. Danielle Hernandez and co-host Tami Richter sit down with Renny Vandewege, General Manager of Weather Intelligence at DTN, to dig into the results of a major industry survey DTN conducted on how event organizers are making weather-related decisions.

Renny walks through DTN's approach, explaining how they've evolved from pure forecasting into what they call an operational decisioning platform. The conversation covers range rings, event-specific trigger thresholds, high-precision lightning and radar data, wet bulb globe temperature for heat safety, and the critical value of having a meteorologist in the loop. A static range ring only triggers after a lightning strike has occurred. A meteorologist can warn you before the first strike happens.

The survey findings are illuminating. Most event weather decisions are made within 48 hours of the event, often in the moment, and decision makers frequently struggle to translate forecast data into action alone.   

The industry has come a long way, but that the work is not finished and DTN's survey helps show the way forward.

Hosts:

Danielle Hernandez (host)   Tami Richter (co-host)

Guest:

Renny Vandewege | General Manager of Weather Intelligence, DTN 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/renny-vandewege-8b0aa735/

Show Notes:

DTN Outdoor Safety | https://www.dtn.com

https://www.dtn.com/weather-risks-in-event-operations/

https://training.fema.gov/nims/

ESA Safer Events Series - Weather | https://eventsafetyalliance.org/safer-events-series

Contact Danielle | [email protected]

Episode 115: The Training Pod

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Phil van Hest and Sean Fox of Rock Force join Danielle and Bryan to tackle a question that many organizations eventually face: where do you start when you're building a crew training program from scratch?

 

Using a hypothetical production company as a framework, the conversation works through the foundational decisions every training program requires, beginning with logistics and goals and moving quickly into substance. Phil walks through fall protection as a practical example for any crew working at height, explaining the four tiers of the fall pro world, why ANSI standards often offer clearer guidance for entertainment than OSHA in most live event crew training situations, and how PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) should be baked into any program from day one as a living document. The discussion covers training records and certification tracking, lead-to-crew ratios, minimum standards for non-rigging crew, PPE orientation, duty of care, and the hierarchy of controls as a practical framework for teaching people what they are not authorized to do.

 

Co-host Brian Huneycutt steps in and his question about psychological safety brings the conversation into focus. Phil and Sean make the case that safety culture is the real curriculum underneath all the technical content. Leads need to know their crew by name. New people need permission to say they don't know something. Safety officers need to understand both where their authority starts and where it ends. And every person on a job site needs to understand that in an industry as small and visible as live entertainment, unsafe behavior has ripple effects far beyond the one load-in where it happens.

 

For anyone starting from zero, Phil's bottom line is clear: PPE training is part of compliance and gets safety onto people's bodies and into their behavior from the start. Pair that with an explicit safety culture message on day one, and you're already ahead of where most companies begin.

 

Hosts:

Danielle Hernandez (host)

Brian Huneycutt (co-host)

 

Guests:

Phil van Hest | Senior Director of National Safety, Rock Force

Sean Fox | Rock Force

https://www.rockforce.com/services#safety-heading

 

Show Notes:

ANSI Z359.1 & Z359.2 (Fall Protection Standards) | https://webstore.ansi.org

ANSI Z490 (Criteria for Accepted Practices in Safety, Health and Environmental Training) | https://webstore.ansi.org

https://tsp.esta.org/tsp/index.html

PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) | Search online for PDCA infographic

https://eventsafetyalliance.org/safer-events-series    Weather Preparedness

Contact Danielle | [email protected]

Episode 114: ESA 114 - GCMA's The Service Playbook

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What does it take to turn a safety plan into a positive experience for your attendees? Danielle Hernandez sits down with Thyr Rodrigues, a spectator services veteran whose career spans the FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014, the Rio 2016 Olympics, the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, and UEFA's Euro 2020 and 2024, to explore The Service Playbook, a new resource from the Global Crowd Management Association (GCMA).

Thyr defines "service" as the intentional, proactive, and engaging use of human and physical resources at the frontline of contact with your audience. It's the bridge between your safety and security plan and the people who need to follow it. The conversation walks through the Playbook's first six chapters, covering headcount planning and service roles (spectator marshals, ushers, pre-information marshals), equipment like umpire chairs and foam hands, operations plans, deployment cards, and the pocket guides that give frontline staff the tools to answer questions on the spot. The discussion also digs into decision points, RAMP analysis, and how service teams function as the eyes and ears of the command room, knowing not just how to help, but who to tell when something goes wrong.

Thyr's framework was built on major sporting events, but as Danielle notes, it's easily scalable and transferable to events of any size and type. With chapters on training and event day preparation still to come, The Service Playbook is well worth a look for anyone thinking about how to set their crowd up for success from the very beginning.

Guests:

Thyr Rodrigues https://www.linkedin.com/in/thyrrodrigues/

Hosts:

Danielle Hernandez (host)

Show Notes:

Global Crowd Management Association (GCMA) | https://thegcma.com/

The Service Playbook | Available at GCMA website, with supporting templates available for GCMA members

Contact Danielle | [email protected]