WILMINGTON, NC – The Event Safety Alliance (ESA) is marking 15 years of promoting life safety first in the live events industry by looking ahead, announcing a series of new education, training, and industry initiatives designed to support event professionals and continue advancing a stronger culture of safety across live events.
RELATED: Fifteen Years After Indiana, We Built The Standards But Not The Leaders
The initiatives include the development of The Event Safety Guide Version 2 (ESG2); a new OSHA 10 training program developed specifically for the live events industry; new crowd manager training currently in development; and expanded opportunities for in-person education and collaboration, including a one-day event safety symposium planned for the first quarter of 2027.
Together, these efforts reflect ESA’s continued focus on education, skills training, and advocacy while creating practical and accessible opportunities for both current and emerging event professionals. Additional details about ESG2, a significant evolution of ESA’s foundational Event Safety Guide, will be announced separately.
“The best way we can honor where ESA came from is to keep moving the work forward,” said ESA President Tami Richter. “Our industry has changed tremendously over the past 15 years, and so have the challenges facing the people responsible for planning and producing events. These initiatives are about meeting people where they are with practical resources, relevant training, and opportunities to learn from one another. Just as importantly, they are about investing in the next generation of event professionals who will carry this work forward.”
Fifteen years ago, on August 13, 2011, the stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair killed seven people and injured 58. It was a watershed moment for the live event industry and, in its wake, the Event Safety Alliance was founded on a commitment to safer events through education, skills training, and advocacy.
ESA marked the anniversary with two panel discussions, one reflecting on the events of August 13, 2011, and the 15 years of progress that followed, and another looking forward at the resources, training, and ideas shaping the future of event safety. The conversations were free and open to everyone who shares a commitment to safer events, with hundreds participating from around the globe. Recordings of both panel discussions will be available on the Event Safety Alliance website in the coming week.
"On August 13, 2011, seven people went to a concert and did not come home. That day changed how many of us understood our responsibility to the people in front of the stage and behind it," said ESA Founder and Immediate Past President Jim Digby. "The Event Safety Alliance was built by people who decided the industry could not wait for someone else to fix this. Fifteen years later there is a body of knowledge where there was none, training pathways where there were none, and a generation of professionals who take it as a given that safety is part of the craft. That progress belongs to everyone who rallied and did the work. It is also unfinished. Risk does not hold still, and neither can we. What matters now is that we keep handing this work forward, getting it into the hands of the people producing events today, better and more useful than we found it.”
Any individual or organization interested in further supporting ESA can make a tax-deductible donation to the Event Safety Fund, a nonprofit corporation explicitly supporting the educational activities of ESA, at https://eventsafetyalliance.org/esf
Event Safety Alliance® (ESA) is a non-profit membership-driven organization dedicated to promoting “life safety first” throughout all phases of event production and operations. Our mission is to help event professionals and our guests be empowered, safe, and aware of the reasonably foreseeable risks around them. We work to achieve our mission through education, skills training, and advocacy. www.eventsafetyalliance.org