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We're very good at what we do but we're not your typical 'safety people'. Our approach to event and crowd safety is markedly different but highly effective and has resulted in some amazing events coming to life.
We are the most qualified, experienced, insured and dedicated Crowd & Event Safety professionals in Ireland. We know people, crowds, movement and risk. We focus solely on events and crowds, regularly up-skilling and working domestically & internationally to ensure we continue to provide best-practice services to all our clients.
We use an enhanced approach to Risk Assessments to ensure better planning & management. Risks change over time so risk assessments must be robust and effective and that means the traditional matrix approach to risk assessments simply isn’t enough when it comes to crowds and events.
Here’s how we assess riskOur Event Controllers and Safety Officers plan events too. The same people that write the Event Management Plans, Risk Assessments and Licence Applications are on the ground during our events, operating in the key roles. We have built a Team that is as effective operationally during the event as it is strategically in the planning phases. Our clients and their events benefit.
We don't think like typical safety people. We don't do things 'because they've always been done that way'. We think for ourselves and we don't mind challenging convention and exploring new and better ways of doing things. We do our research, we consult with colleagues and sometimes we find better ways of doing things. We enjoy discovering better ways to achieve results for our clients.
Our part-time Event Team features the best & brightest in the industry. We work hard to identify new members and we invest a lot of time and resources into working with them to ensure they are the best operational Team in the market. All our Event Team members undergo our Core Skills training programme at a minimum, with many having international Crowd Safety & Risk Analysis qualifications also.
More on our Event TeamWe regularly travel internationally to up-skill. We also operate internationally, with 2 of our Senior Team having worked in Crowd Safety roles at the London Olympics 2012 and one of our Senior Team having been a Safety Advisor for Glastonbury Festival. We bring international best-practice to bear on all our work.
We continually work hard with our broker and insurer to ensure our cover is extremely comprehensive. We have Public Liability, Employers’ Liability & Professional Indemnity cover to high levels. Our policy also outlines everything we do, rather than just a generic phrase like ‘event management’.
We're Ireland's first Crowd & Event specialists. We dedicate a lot of time and resources to ensure we remain industry leaders. This is our passion and we enjoy constantly working hard at it. We are an International Training Partner of Prof. Dr. G Keith Still, the world's leading expert in Crowd Dynamics and run internationally accredited Crowd Safety & Risk Analysis courses.
Event management planning for crowds is a science. There is a Masters degree programme in Crowd Safety & Risk Analysis. Mark in here is in the 1st class in the world to take that MSc. There are tools and techniques that help make Event Management Plans more effective but those EMPs need to be put into play by good, experienced people. The balance between the science and the people is key.
We have been running events for a long time. We’ve run Cuckoo Events since 2012 and before that we were running events for other people. While Cuckoo has always had a specialisation in Event Safety, we’ve imagined, created and produced all sorts of events over the years and continue to do so. We’ve run gala balls, award shows, science fairs, parades, air shows, festivals, touring shows and more. We get it. We’re not just ‘safety people’.
We have a network of international colleagues & contacts. We work on global projects as part of multi-disciplinary teams, with members drawn from a variety of countries, experiences & backgrounds. This also allows us to assemble expert & specialist teams for any potential project we take on, domestic or international.
Risk is unavoidable. The only event without risk is the event that doesn't happen. We understand that risk is part of the game and we tend not to dismiss things without giving them thorough consideration. Some of our favourite events seemed too risky when we were initially approached. We enjoy being challenged to safely run 'risky' events.
We provide Lost Child Wristbands free of charge to community, charity, not-for-profit events and similar. Planning & managing so many large-scale family-fun event, we're acutely aware of the issue of children becoming separated from parents at events.
Anything that minimises that terrible period when a parent has lost a child is worth some effort and investment, to our minds.
We are an International Training Partner of Prof Dr. G Keith Still. We ran the 1st public Introduction to Crowd Safety & Risk Analysis course in Ireland in February 2017, following it up with the 2nd one in November 2017.
We had 31 people on the 1st course and it was heavily oversubscribed. Attendees included members of An Garda Siochana, Local Authority staff, students, Safety Officers, Civil Defence staff, experienced freelancers, lecturers and many more.
The course is 3 days in duration and is accredited by the IIRSM and Manchester Metropolitan University.
We developed this day-long Workshop in response to a need within the colleges and universities for more practical content for their Event Management students.
We run the Workshop annually, generally visiting Institute of Technology Tralee, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Limerick Institute of Technology, Dublin Institute of Technology, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and Athlone Institute of Technology.
We cover the likes of radio operations, barriers, electrics, standard event kit, gazebos & marquees etc. Simple, practical things.
This is a series of LIVE broadcast events from our office, which sees us sitting and discussing a wide range of event-related topics with relevant guests.
The discussions are live on Facebook, allowing interaction with and commenting by those tuning in. This allows us to ensure the discussion and content is as relevant as possible.
We run a series of events-related discussions, workshops and more in our offices. Designed with a real operational focus, these events tend to have an invited speaker from industry discussing a particular topic.
These are small capacity events, designed to be of interest to a reasonably small, niche audience but highly relevant to that audience.
These happen maybe 4 to 6 times a year and we tend to invite people directly and / or advertise them on social media and on our blog etc.
Mark in here writes a regular column for the International Festivals & Events Association magazine entitled ‘Safely Does It’. The magazine is a quarterly one and available on www.ifea.com
The aim of the column is to help people, the world over, to make their events afer. The content tends to be practical, useful information and is often accompanied by infographics and other resources.
We’ve created several infographics over the years, all designed to help people improve the safety of their events. Cuckoo Events-branded, many have been translated and adapted around the world, with some being used regularly in briefings as far afield as Australia. You can access those below.
We ran this industry conference back in November 2015.
It was for event management students and people looking to get into events. While the focus wasn’t Event Safety specifically, it was a feature.
Around 130 people attended and we had over 70 industry professionals from Ireland and abroad contribute. It was free for people to attend and we footed the bill. It's probably not something we can run every year but we'll potentially run it or something similar every couple of years.
We are active members of several key professional bodies.
Some are Event Safety & Crowd Safety specific (IIRSM, ESA). Others are related and highly relevant to what we do every day (IOSH, EMII, EPS).
We embrace the value in the knowledge-sharing and CPD opportunities provided by each.
The IIRSM is focused on risk and safety and accredits the Introduction to Crowd Safety & Risk Analysis course we run.
The IIRSM is focused on risk and safety and accredits the Introduction to Crowd Safety & Risk Analysis course we run.
IOSH is the worldwide body for occupational health & safety practitioners. Our experience in ‘standard’ H&S is always helpful.
IOSH is the worldwide body for occupational health & safety practitioners. Our experience in ‘standard’ H&S is always helpful.
Emergency Planning is a critical element of what we do when we plan events. Our membership of the Emergency Planning Society is testament to just how important an element it is.
Emergency Planning is a critical element of what we do when we plan events. Our membership of the Emergency Planning Society is testament to just how important an element it is.
The ESA is a US-based organisation looking to further the cause of safety in the live events industry worldwide.
The ESA is a US-based organisation looking to further the cause of safety in the live events industry worldwide.