Risk Assessments

Risk assessments are an important part of any show manager’s role. Identifying risks and designing controls to mitigate them will help in running a safe and enjoyable show for everyone.

There are significantly more risks involved in running a show safely during this COVID pandemic. As such risk assessments need to be enhanced to include identified risks and show control measures to minimise these risks.

What to include

The risk assessment content should be as thorough as possible to cover any likely risk you could imagine. It should also be considered a working document, especially during the current environment since you need to be able to react to any changing guidelines or restrictions set out by the Government or Local Authority.

In terms of COVID-specific risks, you need to think about all the various ways in which the virus could potentially get spread at your show and then add the controls in place to minimise these risks. Risks can be identified as affecting all attendees or just a specific group – for instance in the ring it could be the exhibitor, judge, and stewards.

Some of the risk management you will be used to in everyday life such as wearing a face mask indoors, social distancing, and hand sanitising. Others however might be more specific to dog shows such as the award of place cards, rosettes, and trophies.

How to present a risk assessment

Risk assessments (for COVID) can take many forms from a simple Risk Statement to a colour-coded risk plan used in a commercial environment. Usually, the larger the event the more in-depth or commercial the plan should look. The local authority that the plan is presented to will look at larger events with a more critical eye than smaller ones.

In the samples that we have created (download links are on this page and the downloads section) there are two types of risk assessment. Effectively they both have the same risks, just displayed differently. Type A is the more commercial style and should probably be used by larger shows. Type B is probably easier to follow and will be useful when assigning tasks on the day at the show. Both are split into single-ring and multi-ring formats as there are slightly different (more) risks with multi-ring.

The samples created only highlight the COVID element of a risk assessment and should be tailored or modified to fit your event as each show, even if it is held at the same venue as another show will have different risks involved.

Our Samples

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