Safer Events Don’t Happen by Accident: Why VAWG Must Be Part of Event Safeguarding
The Government, police and music industry have joined forces in a major initiative to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG) at festivals and live music events.
The Government's flagship ENOUGH campaign has been taken into Reading and Leeds Festivals through a partnership with Festival Republic, alongside Thames Valley Police and West Yorkshire Police.
The campaign aims to reach festivalgoers directly, highlighting abusive behaviours that can go unrecognised or become normalised and encouraging people to recognise their own role in challenging harmful behaviour.
It is an important development, but for those of us working in safeguarding, venues and events, it should prompt a bigger conversation.
What does it actually mean to create a safe event?
Safeguarding at an event cannot begin when somebody reports an assault, and it cannot end with security.
Events create their own safeguarding environments
Festivals, concerts, sporting events, awards ceremonies, conferences and large-scale public events bring together combinations of risk that safeguarding professionals need to understand.
Large crowds. Alcohol and sometimes drugs. Young people and adults mixing in unfamiliar environments. Temporary workforces. Contractors and subcontractors. Artists, performers and VIPs. Backstage and restricted spaces. Transport arrangements. Hotels. Late-night activity. Power imbalances. Digital interaction, and in some environments, behaviours that can too easily be dismissed as simply part of the culture.
None of those factors automatically makes an event unsafe, but they do create a safeguarding context that needs to be understood before the doors open.
VAWG is an event safeguarding issue
The latest Government announcement specifically focuses on behaviours associated with violence against women and girls.
The ENOUGH campaign is designed to help people recognise abusive behaviours and encourage safe intervention, while police activity at festivals has also included conversations about consent.
This matters because harmful behaviour does not always begin with an obvious criminal offence.
It can begin with:
sexual harassment;
unwanted sexualised comments or contact;
misogynistic behaviour;
persistent unwanted attention;
coercion;
inappropriate filming or photography;
exploitation of somebody who is intoxicated or vulnerable;
stalking or following;
abuse of professional or positional power; or
behaviour that is repeatedly minimised as "banter".
A strong safeguarding culture does not wait for those behaviours to escalate before taking them seriously.
The question isn't only "How will we respond?"
One of the most important shifts we need within event safeguarding is from response to prevention. Of course, organisations need clear procedures for responding to incidents, but good event safeguarding asks questions much earlier.
Where are our areas of vulnerability?
Who might be at increased risk?
What happens when somebody becomes separated from their friends?
How do we respond when intoxication affects somebody's capacity or vulnerability?
Do staff know how to recognise predatory behaviour?
Would a member of temporary event staff know where to report a safeguarding concern?
Are security teams, welfare teams, safeguarding leads, venue management and event organisers clear about their respective responsibilities?
How are concerns recorded and escalated?
What happens backstage, in dressing rooms, hospitality areas or other restricted spaces?
What arrangements exist for children and young people?
How do we manage allegations involving staff, contractors, performers, guests or people in positions of influence?
And crucially:
Would somebody attending our event actually know where to go if they felt unsafe?
These are safeguarding questions, not simply security questions.
Visible safeguarding matters
Festival Republic described creating safe, inclusive and welcoming environments as being at the heart of its events, with support being visible and accessible on site. That visibility matters.
People should not have to understand an organisation's internal structure to get help.
At an event, safeguarding arrangements should translate into something practical.
That might include clearly identifiable welfare provision, accessible reporting routes, trained staff, effective signage and communications, safe spaces, strong escalation arrangements and clear links with security, police, medical services and other agencies.
The larger or more complex the event, the more important that coordination becomes.
A beautifully written safeguarding policy sitting behind the scenes will offer very little protection if the people delivering the event do not understand what it means for them.
Training cannot stop with the safeguarding lead
Event safeguarding is also a workforce issue. Large events can involve permanent staff, agency workers, volunteers, security personnel, production teams, caterers, drivers, contractors, freelancers and venue staff.
Not everyone needs to be a safeguarding expert, but people do need to understand enough to recognise, respond and report.
A member of bar staff may notice someone repeatedly targeting intoxicated women.
A steward may notice somebody following a young person.
A driver may hear a disclosure.
A member of the production team may witness inappropriate behaviour backstage.
Security may identify behaviour that has not yet reached the threshold for criminal intervention but is nevertheless concerning.
Safeguarding intelligence can sit across an event workforce, the challenge is making sure it gets to the right place.
From awareness to intervention
There is another important element within the ENOUGH campaign: encouraging people to recognise harmful behaviour and safely intervene.
Bystander intervention can be powerful, but organisations cannot simply tell people to "speak up" and assume the job is done.
People need psychologically safe ways to challenge and report concerns, staff need confidence that reports will be taken seriously, managers need to understand how to respond without minimising concerns, and organisations need clear thresholds for when behaviour requires safeguarding intervention, security action, police involvement or another response.
Creating that culture requires more than a poster campaign, it requires leadership.
Safeguarding should be designed into an event
At RLB Safeguarding, one of the principles we increasingly emphasise in our work with venues and events is that safeguarding should be designed in, not added on. It should feature in planning conversations alongside security, health and safety, crowd management, licensing, accessibility and operational risk.
That means considering safeguarding within:
Risk assessment – Who could be harmed, how, where and by whom?
Event design – Are there environments, spaces or processes that create additional risk?
Workforce planning – Who needs safeguarding training and at what level?
Roles and accountability – Who holds safeguarding responsibility during the event?
Reporting and escalation – Can concerns move quickly to somebody able to make a safeguarding decision?
Partnership working – How will safeguarding, security, welfare, medical teams, police and venue management work together?
Communication – Do attendees know what behaviour is expected and where support is available?
Post-event learning – Are incidents, near misses and safeguarding intelligence reviewed to improve the next event?
This is how safeguarding moves beyond compliance.
Culture is part of prevention
Perhaps the most important aspect of this latest initiative is its focus on behaviour.
Government messaging at Reading and Leeds did not focus only on victims recognising abuse. It also challenged people to reflect on behaviour that may cause harm, and that distinction matters.
For too long, safety messaging directed at women and girls has centred on what they should do differently.
Don't walk alone.
Watch your drink.
Stay with friends.
Tell somebody where you are.
Those messages may have practical value, but they cannot be the foundation of our approach to VAWG. The responsibility for abuse sits with the person causing harm, and organisations also have a responsibility to create environments in which harmful behaviour is recognised, challenged and acted upon.
A practical safeguarding check before your next event
If you are responsible for planning or delivering an event, safeguarding does not need to become an entirely separate planning exercise. Start by building it into the conversations and checks you are already having.
Before your next event, consider:
1. Map the moments of risk
Don't just assess the venue as a whole. Think about where and when risk and vulnerability may increase, arrival and departure points, queues, toilets, bars, isolated areas, backstage spaces, transport hubs, hotels, smoking areas and the period immediately after an event finishes.
2. Know who may need additional consideration
Think beyond children. Your event may include adults at risk, people affected by alcohol or drugs, individuals with additional needs, people experiencing domestic abuse or stalking, young adults attending independently, or someone who becomes temporarily vulnerable because they are separated from their group.
3. Give someone clear safeguarding responsibility
There should be no uncertainty about who takes the lead when a safeguarding concern arises. Staff should know who that person is, how to contact them and what to do if they are unavailable.
4. Test the reporting route from the attendee's perspective
Imagine you are at the event and something has happened to you or a friend. Where would you go? Who would you speak to? Is help visible? Would you feel safe approaching them? A reporting process is only effective if people can actually use it.
5. Brief the whole event workforce
Security and welfare teams are important, but safeguarding information can come from anywhere. Bar staff, stewards, cleaners, drivers, volunteers, contractors, production teams and hospitality staff should all know the basics: what to notice, how to respond and where to report.
6. Agree your thresholds before you need them
Teams should understand when something is a welfare concern, a safeguarding concern, a security issue, a medical emergency or a matter for police and recognise that sometimes it may be several of these at once. Agreeing escalation arrangements beforehand reduces uncertainty when decisions need to be made quickly.
7. Think about information, not just incidents
One report may appear relatively minor in isolation. Several reports about the same person, location or behaviour may tell a very different story. Make sure concerns are recorded in a way that allows patterns to be identified during the event.
8. Don't finish safeguarding when the event finishes
Review incidents, concerns, near misses and intelligence afterwards. What happened? Were there particular locations, times or recurring behaviours? Did reporting routes work? Were staff confident? What needs to change before the next event?
Perhaps the simplest test is this:
If a member of staff noticed something that made them uncomfortable but wasn't yet an obvious emergency, would they know what to do with that information?
If the answer is no, that is a safeguarding gap worth addressing before the doors open.
The standard for safer events needs to rise
The Government's partnership with the music industry is welcome but the principle should extend far beyond Reading and Leeds Festivals.
Every organisation delivering events should be asking:
What would safeguarding look like here if we designed it properly from the beginning?
Not simply:
"Do we have a safeguarding policy?"
But:
"Do we understand the safeguarding risks created by this event, this environment and this audience, and have we done everything reasonably possible to reduce them?"
That is a much more powerful question because whether it is a festival, concert, sporting fixture, awards ceremony, corporate event or major public gathering:
Safer events don't happen by accident. They are planned, designed, led and delivered that way.
At RLB Safeguarding, we work with venues, event organisers and partners to embed safeguarding throughout event planning and delivery, from safeguarding risk assessment and policy through to workforce training, operational arrangements, reporting pathways and on-the-ground safeguarding considerations.
Our approach is simple: safeguarding should not sit alongside event delivery, it should be part of how the event is delivered.
Supporting safer venues and events
RLB Safeguarding works with venues, event organisers, charities, and delivery partners to embed safeguarding throughout the planning, governance and operational delivery of events.
Our event safeguarding support includes:
Accredited and Bespoke Event-specific safeguarding training for staff, contractors, volunteers, security teams and event personnel
Safeguarding audits and assurance, reviewing how effectively safeguarding arrangements translate into practice
Strategic safeguarding and governance support, helping leaders establish clear accountability, oversight, policies and assurance
Operational safeguarding support, helping organisations identify and manage safeguarding risks before, during and following events with event expert consultants.
Our approach recognises that every event is different. The safeguarding considerations at a festival, sporting event, awards ceremony, corporate event or public gathering will be shaped by the audience, environment, workforce and activities involved.
That is why we don't believe in simply applying a generic safeguarding policy to an event.
We help organisations understand their specific safeguarding risks and build the right arrangements around them, from strategic governance through to what happens on the ground.
Resources
News story- Government, police and music industry unite to tackle VAWG