What if the biggest safety risks at your next event are being created right now, around the planning table?

An unrealistic build schedule. A budget that cannot support the workforce required. A contractor selected without checking their safety capability or record. A team already working excessive hours before anyone arrives on site.

By the time the first truck arrives for bump-in, many of the decisions that shape an event’s work health and safety risks have already been made.

The budget has been approved. The venue selected. Contractors appointed. Build schedules agreed. Workforce numbers allocated. Delivery commitments made. Those decisions determine how much time people have, what resources are available, who does the work, and the conditions they work in.

That is why work health and safety needs a voice at the planning table from the very beginning.

In events, WHS is still often associated with what happens on site: high-vis, inductions, safety inspections, first aid and appropriate footwear. These things matter, but they are only part of the picture.

People's working conditions are shaped much earlier, through decisions about event design, procurement, contracts, workforce planning, and logistics. WHS needs to inform those decisions and the day-to-day leadership that follows, protecting the people who plan the event, the crews who build it, the teams who deliver it and the workers who dismantle it after everyone else has gone home.

Different event phases bring different risks.

During planning, teams may already be working long hours, managing competing priorities, responding to constant changes, and trying to deliver ambitious outcomes on a limited budget and with limited resources.

During bump-in and build, the work environment changes significantly. Depending on the event, activities may include installing temporary structures, rigging, electrical work, installing signage and wayfinding, work at height, lifting operations, mobile plant, and multiple contractors working in close proximity.

Some activities may constitute high-risk construction work, triggering specific WHS legislative requirements. For example, Australia's model WHS framework requires safe work method statements for high-risk construction work. Collecting the documents is only one part of ensuring the work is carried out safely.

During live delivery, the focus expands to day-to-day operations: moving people and vehicles, manual tasks, weather exposure, public interaction, fatigue, welfare facilities, and emergency arrangements.

Then comes bump-out, when crews dismantle structures, move equipment, and load vehicles, often fatigued and under pressure to hand the venue back.

The event finishing for the audience does not mean the risk has finished for the workforce.

Each phase needs appropriate planning, resources, supervision, and coordination. So do the transitions between them, particularly where construction activities and operational teams overlap.

An event is a changing workplace, and your safety approach needs to reflect that.

Psychosocial risk: when "that's just events" becomes part of the problem.

Psychosocial hazards arise from how work is designed, organised, and managed; the working environment; and workplace interactions. They can cause psychological or physical harm.

Psychological safety concerns whether people feel able to speak up without fear of humiliation or punishment. It helps bring concerns to light; managing psychosocial risk means addressing the conditions creating them.

The obligation to protect psychological health is not new, although Australian WHS regulations have become more explicit about psychosocial hazards. Under the model WHS laws, organisations must eliminate psychosocial risks so far as is reasonably practicable or, where elimination is not reasonably practicable, minimise them so far as is reasonably practicable.

In NSW, since 1 July 2026, section 26A of the WHS Act requires businesses to comply with applicable approved Codes of Practice or manage risks to an equivalent or higher standard. This includes the Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice.

Psychosocial risk starts well before opening day, which is why planning matters.

In events, these hazards can show up in familiar ways:

·            Long hours across successive weeks, with insufficient recovery.

·            Constantly changing briefs without changes to resources or deadlines.

·            Conflicting instructions from different stakeholders.

·            Responsibility for outcomes without the authority to make decisions.

·            Inadequate staffing, supervision, or support.

·            Difficult working conditions, remote locations, or extended periods away from home.

·            Pressure to keep delivering after people have raised concerns about their capacity.

These conditions are so familiar that it's especially important to question what we have come to accept as “just events.”

When ‘can do, will do’ becomes something the event depends on.

Most employers would welcome people who take ownership, solve problems, support their colleagues and care deeply about delivering a successful outcome. The events sector is full of these people.

Many of us enjoy the pace, camaraderie, and satisfaction of bringing something extraordinary to life. We live on adrenaline (and coffee), and we take immense pride in finding a way to make things happen.

That commitment is a strength. But it can also conceal the gap between what an event requires and the resources allocated to deliver it.

People stay late, absorb another task, cover a colleague, work through a planned break, or don't take a day off. The work gets done, and the plan seems to work. Less visible are the personal effort, lost recovery time, and accumulating pressure that make it possible.

When people repeatedly make an under-resourced plan work, their commitment can become an assumed part of the delivery model.

Long hours become “just what you do in events.” Rest is something you will get when it is over. Fatigue becomes the subject of banter. A day off starts to feel like an unnecessary luxury, or something the schedule cannot accommodate.

People may also hesitate to raise concerns because they don't want to let the team down, appear unable to cope, or lose the reputation they have built as someone who always delivers.

For those working contract to contract, another concern may be: “If I speak up, will I get another gig?”

The world may be large, but the event community can feel small. Relationships, reputation, and recommendations matter. Without a guarantee of future work, saying “I need a break” or “I cannot safely sustain these hours” can feel like risking your next opportunity and income.

That fear doesn't need an explicit threat to influence someone’s behaviour. People may keep saying yes because they are worried about what saying no could cost them.

A willingness to keep working is not reliable evidence that the workload is safe or that someone feels free to raise concerns.

Organisers need to understand the hours actually worked, the breaks missed and whether workloads are sustainable. Their decisions and behaviour also need to demonstrate that raising safety concerns or needing appropriate rest will not be treated as a lack of commitment or held against someone when future opportunities arise.

If delivering your event depends on people working excessive hours, skipping breaks, and finding ways around an impossible schedule, how safe is your plan?

Is the ‘event roster’ just a tick-the-box exercise?

We need to be honest about the gap between the roster on paper and the hours and days actually worked.

A pre-event roster can become a compliance exercise, prepared to satisfy a tender requirement, funding agreement, or approval process. Yet if it doesn't account for the actual workload, preparation, briefings, handovers, and unexpected demands, it offers little assurance that people will get the breaks and recovery time shown.

A roster only works as a risk control when it is realistic, adequately resourced and followed in practice.

If the people expected to deliver the work already say they cannot do it within the proposed roster, the plan has a problem before delivery begins. Telling them to “self-manage their time” doesn't close the gap between workload and capacity. It can leave them feeling responsible for solving something they lack the resources and authority to fix.

The question is not simply, “Did we have a roster?” It is, “Could people realistically work to it, and what did we do when they couldn’t?”

An EAP can provide valuable support, but it cannot supply the missing crew member, clarify conflicting instructions, or create recovery time in an overloaded schedule.

These conditions affect more than individual wellbeing. They can undermine judgement, communication, engagement, retention, and the event’s ability to deliver.

Workforce planning is a WHS control.

This is why workforce planning in events is so critical. A realistic roster depends on having enough people, with the right skills, time, and support, to deliver the work safely.

That starts with understanding what the event will actually require across its entire lifecycle, then building and resourcing the workforce around those demands. A plan that relies on people routinely exceeding their hours or covering gaps on top of an already full workload needs revisiting before delivery begins.

A workforce plan needs to show how the work can be delivered safely, not simply how many people will be there on event day.

It should account for required skills, competencies, and experience; peak demand periods; supervision; breaks; recovery time; and rest days. It should also address what happens when someone is unavailable due to illness, injury, or unexpected circumstances, and allow enough time for recruitment, onboarding, induction, training, and familiarisation.

Bringing someone in just before delivery and expecting them to understand the site, systems, reporting arrangements, and role requirements immediately creates avoidable pressure for them and those around them. This can introduce or increase psychosocial risks that organisers need to manage.

Whilst budget restrictions often influence these decisions, organisers still need to consider the risks created and what is reasonably practicable to eliminate or minimise them. This includes providing enough time and resources to prepare people for their roles, with appropriate training, support, and supervision as they settle in.

The same applies to volunteers. Enthusiasm and goodwill need clear expectations, suitable roles, training, and supervision.

Those resourcing needs must remain part of the conversation as scopes, deliverables and budgets change during planning. Headcount can be seen as one of the easiest places to make savings, but reducing it can compromise the arrangements needed to support people and deliver the work safely.

When budgets need to be reduced or tightened, cutting headcount should not be the default response.

Before reducing workforce numbers, organisers need to understand what work will be removed, reduced, deferred, or delivered differently. If the scope, deadlines, and expectations remain the same, fewer people usually means more work for those who remain.

That can undermine the assumptions behind the workforce plan: breaks become harder to cover, supervision is stretched, backup disappears, and working hours extend.

If the budget reduces but the work does not, where is that pressure going?

We also need to challenge what we mean when we say, “We have backup.”

In events, we often hear: “We have an experienced, multi-skilled team. Several people can cover different roles if someone gets sick or needs a break.”

Having that capability is valuable. But being able to do another person’s job doesn't mean someone has the capacity to take it on.

In practice, that cover may never materialise because everyone is already committed to their own responsibilities. When it does, someone may absorb additional work on top of an already full workload, miss their own break, or extend their working day.

In those circumstances, we may shift pressure to another person, increase their risk exposure, or create additional risks elsewhere.

If the same people are listed as backup across several functions, the plan may look adequately resourced on paper while leaving very little capacity to respond when something changes. This becomes particularly apparent during peak periods, when several teams may need support at the same time.

A name in a backup column is only meaningful if that person has the skills, availability, and capacity to provide the cover.

A credible workforce plan must reflect delivery realities, including the predictable need for breaks, recovery, and relief. Its success should not depend on people repeatedly working longer, skipping breaks or “just making it happen.”

The planning team’s own working conditions need the same attention. Protecting the future event workforce should not come at the expense of the people developing the event.

Fitness for work also needs planning.

Having enough people available is one part of workforce planning. Whether those people can safely undertake the work expected of them also needs attention.

Fitness for work can be affected by fatigue, alcohol and other drugs, medication effects, physical and mental health, and injuries or illnesses including those unrelated to work.

Having a health condition does not automatically mean someone is unfit. What matters is their capacity to perform the particular role safely, the working conditions and any adjustments or support needed.

Are we planning for people to work safely, or relying on them to push through because the event needs to happen?

A reporting process has limited value if people feel unable to use it, or if supervisors have no practical alternative when someone says they cannot safely continue.

Assessments and testing provide only part of the picture.

For some roles, a pre-engagement health assessment can help identify work capacity and support needs. Its usefulness depends on an accurate understanding of the duties and working conditions. A medical clearance reflects the information available at that time; it cannot account for every subsequent change in someone’s health, workload, or environment.

Drug and alcohol testing may also be appropriate, particularly for safety-critical work. The risks can extend across build, live delivery, and bump-out, including when celebrations start while others still have demanding work ahead.

A negative drug or alcohol test is not, by itself, confirmation that someone is fit for work.

Someone who starts a shift able to work safely may later become fatigued, unwell, or distressed. Assessments, declarations and testing therefore need to sit within ongoing supervision, safe working conditions, and a practical response when concerns arise.

Workers have responsibilities for their own health and safety, but organisers also need to examine the conditions they create. A fitness-for-work policy cannot compensate for arrangements that make adequate recovery impossible.

Procurement decisions are safety decisions.

The same attention to capacity and safe working conditions needs to extend to the contractors and suppliers engaged to deliver the event.

Price, availability, and previous event experience tell only part of the story. Selection should also consider whether a supplier has the competent people, equipment, supervision, and capacity to deliver the proposed work safely within the available timeframe.

A policy and an insurance certificate do not, by themselves, demonstrate that capability. Nor does having delivered a similar event necessarily mean a supplier has sufficient resources available for this one.

WHS expectations need to be clear during tendering and procurement so suppliers can properly resource and price the work. Requirements introduced after appointment can create additional costs and pressures that the original proposal did not allow for.

Those expectations must also be achievable. If we require safe working practices but allow inadequate time, restrict access, or accept a price that cannot realistically support the required resources, we need to examine the conditions we have created.

Does the price reflect what it takes to deliver safely, or does it depend on someone absorbing the gap?

Contractor management continues after the contract is signed.

An event site brings together organisations whose activities can affect each other. A delivery schedule can put vehicles into a pedestrian area. A delayed installation can compress another contractor’s work window. A last-minute layout change can affect access, emergency arrangements, or the safe use of equipment.

Under Australia’s model WHS laws, duties cannot be transferred through a contract. Duty holders with responsibilities for the same matter must consult, cooperate, and coordinate their activities. Appointing a contractor does not automatically remove the organiser’s own duties.

A contractor may understand its own work but have limited visibility of other teams’ activities. The organiser’s broader view is important in coordinating schedules, identifying clashes and ensuring controls remain appropriate as work progresses.

Transport and logistics operations can also bring Chain of Responsibility obligations.

An event’s transport and logistics operations may also bring obligations under the Heavy Vehicle National Law’s Chain of Responsibility provisions. These can apply to event organisers depending on the functions they perform, such as consigning or receiving goods, scheduling transport, or loading and unloading heavy vehicles.

Engaging a transport company does not automatically remove the organiser’s own responsibilities.

Consider the impact of a delayed bump-out. Trucks have been booked, the venue handback deadline is approaching, and equipment is still being dismantled. Drivers face lengthy waits, loading crews are under pressure, and everyone wants the site cleared.

Could the decisions being made to meet the event deadline create risks on the road after those trucks leave?

Delivery schedules, loading arrangements and delays can affect driver fatigue, rest opportunities, and the time available for safe loading. Consider these consequences when planning the event and managing changes.

The Heavy Vehicle National Law applies in participating Australian jurisdictions; Western Australia and the Northern Territory have separate transport requirements.

Decisions made inside the event site can affect people's safety well beyond its gates.

Due diligence starts in the planning phase too.

The decisions discussed throughout this article also create responsibilities for those who govern and lead the organisation. People who qualify as officers under the applicable WHS legislation, including company directors and certain senior decision-makers, have a personal duty to exercise due diligence.

Under Australia’s model WHS laws, that means taking reasonable steps to ensure the organisation complies with its WHS duties. This includes maintaining WHS knowledge, understanding the organisation’s operations and risks, ensuring appropriate resources and processes for managing risks and meeting its obligations, and verifying that those resources and processes are provided and used. It also includes ensuring effective processes to receive and promptly respond to information about incidents, hazards, and risks.

For events, this responsibility applies from the earliest decisions about budgets, workforce numbers, procurement arrangements, and delivery schedules.

When you approve an event budget or delivery schedule, do you also consider the safety risks you may be approving?

An approval can have practical consequences for staffing levels, working hours, supervision, and the time available to complete work safely. Officers need to understand those consequences and seek assurance that the proposed arrangements are adequate.

Oversight must continue as the event develops. A plan that was adequately resourced at approval may become unrealistic as scope increases, timelines compress, or resources are reduced. Information about those changes, and the concerns raised by people doing the work, needs to inform decisions.

Appointing a WHS professional provides valuable expertise and support, but it does not discharge an officer’s personal due diligence obligation. Officers need to stay informed, respond appropriately to the information they receive, and verify that the organisation follows through.

Due diligence must shape decisions from early planning discussions through to final pack-down.

I’ll explore officers’ due diligence obligations in more detail in a separate article, including what meaningful oversight looks like in an event environment.

What can organisers do in practice?

1.          Engage WHS early and build psychosocial risk management into workforce planning.

Bring WHS into discussions with event leadership, workforce planning, operations, and procurement while the scope, budget and delivery approach are still being developed.

Consult people who understand the work and draw on lessons from previous events. Assess expected workloads, working hours, competing demands, role clarity, decision-making authority, supervision, support, and recovery across the event lifecycle. Use those findings to inform staffing levels, recruitment timing, responsibilities, rosters, and contingency resources.

Allow time for onboarding, training, briefings, handovers, breaks, and recovery. Include the planning team, contractors, and volunteers.

Develop the plan around safe delivery, then test whether the proposed arrangements will hold up in practice.

2.          Test the workforce plan against realistic scenarios.

Begin scenario testing during initial workforce and budget planning. If the delivery team has not yet been appointed, start with the planning group, then revisit the scenarios as people come on board and operational requirements become clearer.

Work through situations such as:

·            A key team member calls in sick during the busiest delivery day.

·            Two people need breaks while another is responding to an incident.

·            A delayed build overlaps with rehearsals and operational preparations.

·            Someone reaches the end of their planned shift, but their replacement is unavailable.

·            The projected workload leaves no capacity for planned days off.

·            Site operating hours extend beyond the hours covered by the roster.

For each scenario, ask: Who steps in, what happens to their existing work, and how are their own breaks and recovery protected?

Check the answers against actual tasks, timings, competencies, and competing demands. Include preparation, briefings, handovers, training, and travel between sites when assessing capacity.

Where gaps emerge, adjust resources, scope, or schedule, and test again. Agree who can authorise those changes and what will trigger additional support.

If the answer repeatedly depends on someone working longer, skipping a break or “just making it happen,” the plan needs to change.

3.          Review safety implications before approving changes to scope, budget, or timelines.

Assess how changes to scope, budget or timelines will affect workload, staffing, supervision, work sequencing, and recovery. If workforce numbers fall, identify what work will be removed, deferred, or delivered differently. If demands increase, reassess required resources.

Record the agreed actions and responsibilities and communicate revised arrangements to affected teams and contractors.

4.          Check what is happening beyond the roster.

Provide a practical way to record actual hours worked, missed breaks, consecutive days worked and unplanned cover across planning, build, live delivery and bump-out. Agree how relevant contractor information will be shared and reviewed.

Assign someone with the authority to act to review this information frequently enough to intervene before the next shift or foreseeable peak in demand.

When the work departs from the roster:

·            Speak with the people doing it to understand why.

·            Assess the effect on workload, fatigue, breaks, and recovery.

·            Adjust staffing, priorities, scope, or schedules as needed.

·            Record the action taken and check whether it resolves the problem.

Act on concerns raised before delivery as well as the hours recorded during it. Do not wait for a pattern to emerge where a single departure creates a significant risk.

5.          Establish workable fitness-for-work arrangements.

Before engagement or deployment:

·            Identify roles that may warrant a health assessment, based on their actual duties and risks. Give the clinician accurate role information and allow time to consider adjustments.

·            Establish a confidential pathway for raising health-related limitations or medication effects relevant to safe work.

·            Plan rosters, accommodation, and travel to support adequate sleep and recovery.

·            Prepare supervisors to recognise concerns, have respectful conversations, and seek appropriate advice.

·            Arrange relief, modified duties, medical support, and safe transport where someone cannot safely continue.

Where drug and alcohol testing is appropriate, establish a lawful and reasonable policy through consultation and coordinate arrangements with contractors and labour-hire providers. Define who is covered, when testing may occur, the competent providers and methods to be used, and how results, confirmatory testing where required, confidentiality and follow-up will be managed.

Plan coverage across the relevant event phases and shifts and allow for the operational consequences if someone cannot continue working.

Health assessments and testing arrangements should respect consent, privacy, and applicable discrimination requirements. Share work-capacity and adjustment information only with those who need it to implement safe arrangements.

6.          Build clear expectations into procurement and contractor management.

Assess whether suppliers have the people, equipment, supervision, and available capacity to deliver the proposed work safely. Discuss how they intend to manage the specific demands of the event.

Make relevant requirements clear early enough for suppliers to resource and price them, including:

·            Responsibilities, site rules, competencies, and licensing.

·            Risk assessments and safe work method statements where required.

·            Induction, supervision, consultation, and coordination.

·            Incident reporting, escalation, and subcontractor management.

·            Working hours, fatigue controls, and welfare arrangements.

·            Changes to scope, sequencing, access, or site conditions.

After appointment, check that agreed arrangements are being implemented. Coordinate overlapping activities and make sure changes reach everyone affected.

For heavy vehicle movements, identify applicable Chain of Responsibility roles and agree realistic delivery windows, loading arrangements, responsibilities for load weights and restraint, and processes for managing delays. Include an escalation pathway when a deadline cannot be met safely.

7.          Make it safe to raise concerns, and show what happens next.

Give employees, contractors, and volunteers clear ways to raise concerns about workload, fatigue, unsafe conditions, or insufficient resources.

Explain who will respond and how urgent issues will be escalated. Follow up with the person who raised the concern, so they know what action was taken.

Leaders need to reinforce, through their behaviour, that they take requests for appropriate rest and safety concerns seriously. That includes recognising the fear some people have that speaking up could affect future work.

8.          Give leaders evidence they can act on

Provide decision-makers with information about emerging risks, workforce capacity, actual hours, contractor performance, and unresolved concerns.

Useful questions include:

·            Can we still deliver the agreed scope safely with the resources and time available?

·            What has changed since the plan was approved?

·            Which controls have we checked in practice?

·            What concerns remain unresolved, and why?

·            What decisions or additional resources are needed now?

Agree who owns each action, when it will be completed and how its effectiveness will be checked.

These conversations need to happen while there is still time to change the plan, and they should continue for as long as the work is being done.

9.          Give WHS the opportunity to influence the plan.

WHS expertise has the greatest opportunity to influence an event when the budget, contracts, workforce, and delivery approach are still being shaped. That requires more than a meeting invitation. It means access to relevant information and decision-makers, with leaders prepared to act when concerns are raised.

A successful event depends on the people who plan, build, operate, and pack it away. Their health and safety needs to be built into the decisions that make the event possible.

International Event Safety Group, your partner in safe event delivery

At International Event Safety Group, we work alongside organisers to integrate WHS into planning, procurement, workforce arrangements, and on-site delivery throughout the event lifecycle.

If you are planning an event or tournament, let’s talk while your plans are still taking shape. We can help you identify risks early, develop practical controls and test whether your plans support safe delivery.

Protecting the people who bring an event to life starts long before they arrive on site.