Question

Scenario You are the senior event services manager for a 12,000-seat arena located on a major university campus in the southeastern United States. The university’s athletics teams compete in the powerful Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). On this particular Saturday afternoon, the university men’s basketball team is playing a home game against one of its fiercest ACC rivals. In fact, the visiting team is the defending NCAA national champion and the fans were in a frenzied state for this game when you opened the doors. This televised marquee match-up is sold out. The game has commenced as tip-off was scheduled at 3:08 p.m. EST. As halftime approaches, the power goes out as a result of an automobile accident that knocked out a major electrical transformer. To the best of your knowledge, the power is out all across campus, as well as in the nearby surrounding neighborhoods. The campus police officers on duty have received word that the power will most likely not be restored for several hours. The majority of the campus police on duty in the arena have been directed to take other posts on campus to assist with traffic control and to protect some the highly sensitive research venues on campus. The operations manager reports that while the emergency generator started up and there is emergency lighting, for some reason the public address system is not working even though it is connected to the generator. You are the senior manager on-site and are responsible for decision-making and leading your staff in addressing this dilemma. The campus police have previously agreed that the decision whether or not to evacuate the venue during any event is ultimately the responsibility of the arena’s senior manager on-site during any emergency situation.

Assignment Emergency planning is an ongoing activity that should involve every department within a venue. From the event manager’s point of view, emergency preparedness takes on heightened importance during events because of the high stakes in a venue occupied by many people. The event manager must have the knowledge and competence to carry out emergency responses if necessary. In addition to venue management staff, emergency response will include appropriate actions from a broad range of venue occupants, including event staff (such as ushers and security personnel), medical staff, police, and fire officials. The emergency plan should include a chain of command protocol that includes an incident command system specifying who is in charge. Please answer the following questions as thoroughly as possible:

1. What is the first action you must take in this situation?

2. What instructions do you give to your on-site staff?

3. How do you communicate with the fans without the public address system?

4. How do you handle questions from fans regarding continuation of the game?

Answer 1

1. I would assign many event staff as possible to each row of the occupants and make them tell the fans to stay calm as the match cant get continued if unnecessary noise persists. This would be the first action from my side as the event manager.

2.I would ask a group of on-site staff to get some wireless microphones with the maximum intensity of sound along with a projector and a smart board as it could minimize the disturbance to some extent by conveying the messages to the people occupied. Other on-site staff would be assigned duties of making the occupants understand that they need to get calm in order to resume the match and giving them an apology for these kinds of inconvenience caused.

3.I would try to utilize the wireless microphone and also would also try communicating the matter through the projector and a smart screen.

4.I would surely decide to continue the match as the match was already nearing halfway . Moreover I would apologize to every fan member who comes up with the question to stay calm and assure them that the match would be continued within a short span of time.

Hence the answer.

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