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The Need for Severe Weather Plans and Weather Providers

Dax Cochran oversees business operations for WDT’s WeatherOps Event Safety Services, managing all day-to-day business development strategies and direct sales efforts with a goal of increasing safety standards throughout the events and entertainment industries.

As festival season cranks up, so does severe weather season. Festival and event managers are busy finalising details for the event, securing vendors, and wrapping up all loose ends. With safety a growing priority for all outdoor events, weather planning should be one of the top items on your checklist.

Maybe it won’t be at your next event, but eventually weather will put you in the hot seat. It is important to plan ahead so you don’t find yourself making reactionary decisions. So where do you start when it comes to installing a good plan and access to reliable weather information to ensure a high degree of safety for your crews, talent, vendors, and your audience?

As we all know, weather can impact an event in many ways so you must plan for every contingency. Many resources exist to provide historical weather data for your event site and for the time period you will be there. This can help you determine what conditions are possible at your event and and what preparation needs to be made. It is also good to engage professional resources or review industry-provided guidelines to adapt those to your needs. Remember, every event is different and will likely require a customised weather plan.

Examples of resources you should engage with include The Purple Guide and the Event Safety Alliance. In addition to required written plans, be sure to outline actions in a chart so that various departments can be easily educated on what is expected of them when weather occurs.

To borrow a line from a previous article I wrote last year: “Do all that we can within reason, not just what we should.” This statement is important to consider when weather planning for an event.

Installing a plan with the input of as many stakeholders as possible – such as the venue, local emergency management, and your staging provider – is paramount. Next, you should install a private weather support service. This provider will supply you with the technology required to set up, organise, and disseminate weather products such as forecasts and alerts. It is vital to ensure that your provider backs the technology with 24/7 access to speak with a meteorologist.



Let’s discuss the importance of all of this and how it is required as part of your plan:


Hopefully, you now see the importance of first having a plan, but then leveraging a weather vendor with live forecaster support and the technology required to back it up. Weather is predictable, but it takes a good plan and reliable partners to ensure a safe experience for anyone at your event.

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