Music must rule over mayhem
This season of music festivals begins with a cloud over it, forever changed by last fall’s tragedy in Las Vegas, when a lone gunman opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest festival.
Country singer Jason Aldean was on stage and more than 20,000 fans were in the crowd when the bullets started.
Fifty-nine people died and hundreds more were injured, making it the deadliest mass shooting by an individual in American history.
Other high-profile incidents have also shaken the concert industry in recent years, including a suicide bomb attack outside the arena in Manchester, England, where Ariana Grande was performing, and the November 2015 attack on the Bataclan Café in Paris during a show by the Eagles of Death Metal.
While these events are rare, they ’re enough to make some nervous about attending a concert or festival.
Add to that the risk of assault, overdose and/or heat exhaustion, and it’s no wonder one hears of parents not allowing teenagers to go see their favourite bands, and teenagers and adults worried about going to concerts.
Still, Ottawa is alive with festivals and outdoor music in the summer.
Last weekend saw no fewer than three major music festivals in the capital, and the biggest of them all is just around the corner.
The 24th annual edition of RBC Ottawa Bluesfest runs from Thursday, July 5 to Sunday, July 15, at LeBreton Flats Park on the grounds of the Canadian War Museum, featuring a string of headliners that includes Foo Fighters, Bryan Adams and the Dave Matthews Band, to name just a few of the dozens of acts on the program. As many as 300,000 people are expected to attend. So, is security a concern?
Dr. Nik Ives-Allison, who’s the executive director of the Ottawa Music Industry Coalition, studied and worked in the counterterrorism field before switching to the music industry. She has a PhD in counterterrorism from the University of St. Andrew ’s in Scotland. (She does not work for Bluesfest, although the festival is one of the members of OMIC, a not-for-profit, member-based organization, and Bluesfest director Mark Monahan is president of OMIC’s board of directors. Her salary is paid by OMIC, with funding from the city.)
“One of the first things I noticed moving back to Ottawa is how well laid out Bluesfest is,” Ives-Allison says. “They ’re ahead in site design, in terms of entrances and exits, and removable barriers. There are lots of ways for people to escape an area fast, or lock down quickly, and first responders have easy access. People don’t realize how safe it is.”
She’s also quick to point out that it’s “remarkably unlikely” an incident would happen at Bluesfest.
After all, terrorists don’t actually have a history of targeting bands, she says.
“You never see a statement from terrorists that they’re going to attack a concert because they hate, say, REM,” she says. “Even at the Bataclan, it wasn’t targeted because Eagles of Death Metal were playing. It was targeted because it was a gathering of people in a confined space in a dark hall where the crowd was standing.”
She also points to Bluesfest’s emergency response plan.
“The best asset you can have is planning,” she says. “There is no replacement for a well-thoughtout emergency response plan. You can have all the technology in the world, but if the plan isn’t in place, none of it matters.”
Bluesfest’s operations director, Mike Rouleau, says the emergency response plan is a 90-page document that’s updated every year. Every festival in town is required to submit a similar plan to the city ’s Special Events Advisory Team as part of the permit process, outlining what to do in case of emergency, whether it’s a lost child, weatherrelated event, fire or bomb threat. Bluesfest organizers also met with Ottawa fire and police services acoupleofweeksbeforetheevent to review the plan.
Rouleau says fans will see several new security measures in place for this year’s Bluesfest, including metal detectors at the entrance, no in-and-out privileges, and a reduction in the size of bag allowed on site. The metal detectors are the airport-style, walk-through magnetometers that, if set off, prompt a guard to conduct a secondary scan with a wand.
Some patrons are riled about the changes, particularly the rescinding of in-and-out privileges, but Ives-Allison points out that it’s a standard in the industry.
One major reason for implementing the policy is to stop people from nipping out to guzzle alcohol and consume drugs.
Other new features include better lighting in the site’s dark corners, and controlling access to the bicycle path behind the museum, a response to last year’s breach in the site’s rear fencing.
Guards say dozens of young people responded to a call on social media to meet at the rear fence, overwhelm security and gain access to the festival on the night when Atlanta hiphop acts Migos and Lil Yachty performed. The social-media trail was discovered afterward.
Also new this year are some “site-hardening” vehicle barricades to prevent incidents such as the recent Toronto van attack in April that left 10 people dead.
The new anti-vehicle barricades are one of the latest products in the barrier industry. Made of steel and designed to be deployed without the use of heavy equipment, they ’re commonly used at high-profile public events throughout the United States, including sports venues and the Grammy Awards. A new Ottawa company, ARX Fencing & Logistics, an offshoot of security firm TOERSA, is one of the first in Canada to provide the barricades.
Still, there are no plans to turn the festival into a fortress. Guards won’t be wearing bulletproof vests and drones won’t be patrolling the skies, unless it’s to capture a bird’s eye photo or video image.
“It’s a lot harder for things to happen at big open-air festivals where there’s a lot of security,” says IvesAllison. “I tell 13-year-olds, if you’re not going to feel safe there, you’re not going to feel safe anywhere.”
Although she doesn’t work with youths on a formal basis, IvesAllison says she’s been invited by friends who are teachers or parents to speak to young people, frequently after a major incident.
“It spikes after a major incident, like the Ariana Grande bombing or the Paris attacks,” she said. “But there isn’t usually a sustained level of fear. I’d say I was hearing more concerns in 2015-17 than I am now.”
What she tells youth is to work through their fears and do what’s necessary to alleviate their anxiety.
“What do you need to feel safe? If it’s having your phone on you and being able to call your mom, do it,” Ives-Allison says.
“If there’s one thing you’re scared about, let’s talk about it and get over that hump, because you don’t want to miss out on some of the best, coolest, most awesome experiences life has to offer.
“There’s a reason I left counterterrorism for music. There’s no replicating that feeling of working with an artist and putting on a show. It’s a magical thing. I wouldn’t want people to miss out on that because they’re scared.”
Behind the scenes, it’s often the artists who are most concerned about security. No act wants their name associated with a terrorist or shooting incident, and they all want fans to have a good time.
“Ten years ago, no artist wanted to see police anywhere near them. They just wanted us to make sure people were happy and their gear wasn’t being stolen,” says Matthew Purcell, who’s the stage-security manager and artist liaison for TOERSA Security. “Now there are some requesting uniformed, armed officers within a certain distance. They also have questions about our procedures, what the perimeter is like, whether there’s a bag check, metal detectors or bomb-sniffing dogs.”
Bluesfest security is the domain of TOERSA, the Ottawa company founded 10 years ago by CEO Chris Ibey specifically to handle the festival’s needs. The name is an acronym for Training and On-site Enforcement of the Responsible Service of Alcohol. The business has grown from a half dozen or so nightclub bouncers to an operation that employs more than 700 people, and provides trained staff for events in Eastern Ontario, west Quebec and the Toronto area.
“Way back when, our first priority was to make sure people didn’t land on their heads when they’re crowd surfing,” said Purcell.
Today the company has teams that specialize in first aid, perimeter security, sexual assault prevention, overdose prevention and more.
They ’re not law-enforcement officers but they’re trained to know the law, and are often a festival’s first-response team. They were, for example, the ones securing the site moments after Bluesfest’s 2011 stage collapse. In 2015, when the crowd surged forward as Kanye West took the stage, they were also the ones pulling hundreds of people out of the stage-front crush, close to 500 in the first five minutes of the show. Already this year, one of their staff has had to administer Naloxone, the medication used to reverse opioid overdose, to a person who was out cold, non-responsive, during an event in a public place.
Not surprisingly, the extra personnel, equipment and training required to make a festival safe these days costs money. Minimum wage is up and more bodies are required every year.
“Things are not going to get any cheaper,” said Bluesfest’s Rouleau. “We all need money. It’s not just Bluesfest. Everybody needs support, and needs to be able to say we are doing what we feel is enough, and adequate for the size of our event, to make people feel safe.”
“It’s not Bluesfest’s fault for the current security environment,” adds Ives-Allison. “It’s not responsible for the evolution of terrorism or mass shootings over the last 15 years."
She’s feeling a sense of frustration among Ottawa festivals at the growing costs.
“Whether it’s looking at metal detectors or hiring additional police or even just trying to do a site plan that takes security concerns into consideration, it puts additional pressure on personnel and budgets and resources. When so many of our festivals are non-profit organizations that barely break even, to have massive increases in security costs, particularly when it comes from public expectations, just isn’t always realistic. Trying to match what’s needed and make sure everyone’s safe and not go under every year is really really difficult.
“When it comes to security that is national security related, it should be at the very least a public-private partnership and more should be done at the federal level and at the provincial level to ensure that festivals and events can continue because they’re an embodiment of what it means to be Canadian. If we can’t do the things where we’re able to express our freedoms, what’s the point of having them?”
There is no replacement for a well-thought-out emergency response plan. You can have all the technology in the world, but if the plan isn’t in place, none of it matters.
NIK IVES-ALLISON, executive director of the Ottawa Music Industry Coalition