Analysis Of The Legal Issues Pertaining To Cliffhanger Festival - Essay Example

Analysis Of The Legal Issues Pertaining To Cliffhanger Festival Executive Summary The Cliffhanger Festival is an annual event that includes games and other outdoor events. The primary organiser of the event, Heason Events has some legal obligations that must be attained for a successful event to be organised. The main legal requirements are health and safety matters and licensing. The legal requirement for health and safety is rooted in the concept of negligence and the duty of care for the organisation of public events like this festival. This duty of care is supported by common law and civil law in the UK as well as European Union Laws. It puts the organisers in a position where they need to identify their duty to the participants in terms of health and safety and also put in place measures to ensure that this is honoured. The licenses required are spelt out in the Licensing Act of 2003. The necessary licenses required by Heason Events include licences to use premises, to sell alcohol, copyright permissions for music as well as trademark permission. It is recommended that Heason Events puts in place a good risk management team that will analyse the health and safety risks involved at each stage of the event. They should set up a first aid centre and insure those that cannot be handled. Participants should be given conspicuous notices on health and safety tips. The team should monitor risks regularly. Also, Heason must put in place practical steps to ensure that all partners and exhibitors have complied with all necessary licensing requirements. This should be monitored before and during the event to prevent abuses. Introduction This paper examines the legal matters relevant to the organisation of Cliffhanger 2011, the UK’s largest outdoor event that is expected to draw about 20,000 visitors to Sheffield this year (Cliffhanger Official Website). It is aimed at inspiring and encouraging people to exercise and indulge in outdoor events that will promote socialisation and entertainment. There are several legal issues that the organisers of the event need to be aware of and make necessary action to ensure that they are controlled to ensure that the event goes on and ends without issues and problems to the organisers. Key amongst these issues is the issue of health and safety as well as licensing. This paper critically examines the legal basis of these two main issues. This is followed by an evaluation of how these issues affect the organisation of Cliffhanger 2011. The paper concludes with recommendations on how the organisers of Cliffhanger 2011 can control these issues and ensure that they do not mar the event. Event Context The Cliffhanger festival is a major outdoor event that aims at attracting people from all over the world to come and join in the fun of its outdoor games and exhibitions. Cliffhanger is an annual event that is rotated across the UK and this year, it is being held in Sheffield between July 2nd and 4th. The festival is organised by Heason Events, Sheffield City Council and Events Sheffield. Heason events is the primary event organiser. The partners include BKSA, British Military, International Federation of Sporting Councils (IFSC), Jury’s Inn, Millhouse Works, Real Radio and SYO. Sponsors include Decathlon, Climbin Works, Yorkshire Hotels and Hammer design. Music and camping services are rendered in partnership with Alpkit UK. The festival will be opened to members of the public and it primarily targets families. It will involve a series of outdoor events and camping as well as entertainment and fun. The main events include bike riding, bowling, training sessions, caves, climbing, demonstrations by professional fitness trainers, golf, races, food and drink exhibitions, blood donations, swimming, music and amusement, camping and jumping. Most of the event will be held at Millhouse Park, Abbeydale, Sheffield which has 200 parks, woodlands and gardens and is the greenest city in Britain. There will be an admission fee of £6 for adults and £1 for an accompanying person under 16 and free for an accompanying person under the age of 4. This shows the fact that the festival seeks to promote family participation. There are six main units for the organisation of the event. They are: 1. Overall Event Management (handled by Heason Events) 2. Press & Media Unit 3. Local City Matters (Sheffield City Council) 4. Trade & Sponsorship 5. Sporting Management Unit (handled by IFSC)& 6. Volunteering Co-ordination These units are expected to coordinate and deliver a very good festival that will be free of problems and glitches. Legal Issues In summary, the main legal matters of importance to Cliffhanger, 2011 include event ownership, contracts, licences and permissions, health and safety, discrimination matters, data protection and child protection. Event ownership is concerned with the organisational structure and legal control of the event (Bowdin et al, 2006). It is about the source and control of the legitimate authority to organise the event, the power to control resources for the event to be hosted properly and of course legal responsibility for the event. The legal right to ownership of this event primarily reverts to the owners of the Cliffhanger festival brand which is shared by the IFSC and other sports and outdoor activity brands. However, for the purposes of the 2011 event, the right has been delegated to Heason Events and all the other entities are supporting in the use of this right. Also, to be able to ensure that other organisations involved work to standards, Heason Events has various contracts with them which are to be regulated by the laws of the land. There are also the legal issues relating to discrimination in admitting people to the event and also employing people. There should be no discrimination against people on the basis of their race, sexual orientation or gender. The atmosphere must also be conducive for people with all kinds of disability to enjoy the services being rendered. There is also the data protection that requires the event organisers not to disclose details of living people present at the event. There is the child protection law that forces the organisers to ensure that children are accompanied by adults and are protected from indulging in activities that might harm them. Health & Safety As organisers of the event, Heason Events and other partners have a primary legal duty, founded on public calling to protect the health and safety of people on its premises (Holmes, 2005). This is a principle founded under common law, the most basic legal system of Britain. This is because they are calling members of the public to come and patronise their services and they therefore have to ensure that they take reasonable care to ensure that these participants do not get injured. Aside this general premise to protect the health and safety of the participants of the event, anyone who comes to the festival and gets injured has the right to sue Heason Events in case s/he gets any health problem or injury whilst the festival was going on. This is a civil case that can be brought against the event organisers and once the plaintiff can show evidence that the harm was from the event, s/he is entitled to some kinds of damages. In Donoghue V Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100, it was established that a person owes another a duty of care, once he is rendering a service to the other person. In this case, a woman and her friend went to a public bar and was given a drink from a bottle by the attendant. It was poured into a glass which she drank. After the same drink it, the attendant poured drink from the same bottle into her friend’s glass and it was found that there was a decaying material similar to a dead snail in the drink. The woman had some stomach upsets afterwards and went to court and sued the bar. It was held that the bar owed the customer a duty of care so the woman was awarded damages. This therefore means that if the event goes on with little care for the health and safety of participants, any injury that will occur during the event can lead to court suits that can cause serious losses to Heason Events. In such a case, arguing on the premise that the customer made mistakes might be difficult because once it is established that Heason Events acted negligently, the court will normally disregard the errors of the plaintiff. From Martin V Herzon [1920] the court stated that contributory negligence can be a factor but the primary responsibility is on the defendant to take reasonable steps to avoid injury. If it fails to do so, it had acted negligently. In an injury tort case, the event organisers will be assessed on whether they were ‘reasonable persons’ or not. In the case of Vaughan V Menlove [1837] 132 ER 490 it was held that if a person was aware that his actions could lead to injury to another person and made no attempt to rectify it, then that person is liable to pay damages on the grounds of negligent. In this event, it is clear that there are risks that can easily lead Heason Events to civil lawsuits. The pointers to negligence in tort cases as identified in Caparo V Dichnan [1990] 2 AC 605: 1. Was the loss foreseeable? Yes, there is a huge risk that people will get injured either in outdoor events or in their stay in the event’s premises. 2. Was there proximity? There is a huge chance that people can get injured on contact with the event’s equipment or premises as it covers a large area of land. 3. Is it fair and reasonable to impose a duty of care? Yes, until Heason makes clear demarcations, there is a big risk that participants can hold them responsible for injuries. European Union Law, Article 288 (2), the Francovich Doctrine also supports the rights of people who are injured in this events to damages. Under this law, the plaintiff will have to show that he acted independently, there was a failure on the part of the organisers to prevent injury and finally the organisers failed to implement EU directives on safety (Antoniolli, 2008) There is therefore the need for Heason Events to make all the necessary efforts to ensure that they identify risks to health and safety and do their best to prevent it. Licensing & Permissions “Licensing regimes serve legitimate aims including the protection of public safety, the protection of the rights of others and the prevention of crime and disorder. It is legitimate to say that there is a pressing social need for regulation” (Manchester et al, 2008) p88. In the UK, the Licensing Act, 2003 regulates alcohol, public entertainment, cinemas, theatres, refreshment houses and night cafes. This act as so many implications for the organisation of Cliffhanger, 2011. This is because several sections are relevant to the regulation of the various activities and units of the event. Part 3 of the Licensing Act requires that the premises used in the organisation of the event should be duly registered for the activity for which it is to be used for. This requirement is necessary because there are many compliance requirements for each specific premise type so there is the need for each premise used to meet all these standards (House of Commons, 2009). Part 5 will pertain to the event itself. This is because it is a section of the law that requires temporary activities and events of this nature to be duly registered and compliant with all the requirements. Heason Events therefore need to make the effort to get a license to attain this. Part 5 also requires the involvement of the police in the event. This therefore means that after they seek licensing, they need to get the police informed about the event and then get their consent and support to ensure that crime and other anti-social behaviours are checked and controlled during the event. This application should be done to the Sheffield Local Licensing Committee and the areas affected by this Licensing Act. Also, the Licensing Act affects the sale of alcohol, supply of alcohol, regulation of entrants and other things pertaining to its use and sale to minors. There is a penalty of up to £1,000 for the sale of alcohol to under-aged persons. Street traders also need licenses that will certify their right to sell on the streets. This license can be obtained from the Sheffield City Council which is also a joint organiser of the event. Also, all the outlets that will play songs in that period will have to pay royalties to the appropriate department of the UK Copyright Office (Cloonan, 2007). The licensing Act of 1964 requires that all live music performed in the various premises involved in the event pay appropriate royalties to t he copyright owners . Heason Events therefore has to ensure that this is done in all units and centres that there will be music. Also, road use and permissions for other public places like the parks and natural resources should be sent to the city authorities for approval and co-ordination. Finally, the trademark license for all sporting events and activities should be sought (Gardiner, 2006) from the appropriate sporting events that will take place during the Cliffhanger festival. Recommendations It is advisable for Heason Events to use the principles of risk management to ensure that safety requirements and duties are identified in the event and honoured. The best approach is to form a risk management team that will be solely responsible for the analysis of risks that cuts across the events at the various stages. The risk management team needs to first identify the risks that any person could be opened to at any stage of participation, long before the event commences. This can be done by making a comprehensive analysis of each premise and the dangers that it presents. There should be the set up of health and first aid units in the premises of the event to handle injuries and health problems that will occur during the event. Also, risks that cannot be handled easily should be insured by a third-party insurance company before the event commences. A risk management team needs to be formed. This team will have to work hand-in-hand with other units so they will have to train the members of the other units of the event so that they become abreast with the risks and co-operate just in case some risks come up during the event. The risk management team needs to examine the Health & Safety Executive recommendations and come up with the following: 1. Health and safety posters conspicuously displayed on the premises 2. Action to take in cases of emergencies, conspicuously displayed in the various premises of the event. 3. Location of the first-aid point and emergency umbers 4. Copy of specific information on posters relating to health and injury 5. Posters on insurance arrangements, specifying the benefits and the limitations. It is important for the risk management team to form a risk monitoring team that will be tasked with the actual monitoring of risks during the event. It is advisable to maintain a cross-functional team of medical professionals, fire experts and security personnel. This team of technically competent members should be mixed with volunteers who will be trained to handle risk monitoring and reporting. When the event is being set up, there should be a risk monitoring team that will be alert for dangers and other health hazards and then make recommendations as quickly as possible. This team should include health professionals and other risk management experts. They should work through good communication systems to a centralised risk management unit that will contact a central point for prompt action to be taken. During the event, crowd management strategies should be adopted and used by the risk monitoring team to prevent stampedes and other anti-social activities that may lead to injuries and health problems. The team should also find ways of controlling drunk disorderly behaviours. There should be units of the risk monitoring team that will specialise in very vital areas like fire emergencies, food safety, water quality, lighting, poisoning, bites and stings, parking as well as electric and gas safety. The risk monitoring team needs to assist people with health problems whenever a situation of that nature is reported. The risk monitoring team should not be dissolved right after the festival. They should stand by and watch for risks after the event is being folded up. This way, they will always have an idea of the danger at hand and make plans to avert them. The risk monitoring team can only be dissolved after all the participants have departed and the event is officially ended. The Heason team should identify and study all the local and international licensing and permission requirements of each participant. The must give inform each partner and exhibitor of his licensing needs and requirements. The next thing is to hold series of monthly meetings with partners, exhibitors and other parties strongly involved in the whole festival six months before it is commenced and use that as a method of reminding them. They should then identify the licensing arrangements that can be attained easily through the Sheffield City Council. When this is done, Heason can have a meeting with Sheffield City Council and streamline the license registration process and make it very simple and convenient for all parties concerned to register. When this is successfully attained, the next step would be to find ways of getting the participants and other interested party to meet deadlines. In other words, there should be targets set on a monthly basis and this should be concerned with the attainment of certain basic licenses for each event partner. By June, every exhibitor and event partner should get all licenses and be compliant with all legal requirements. During the event, they need to deploy the risk monitoring team to hold audits to ensure that all the exhibitors and partners are meeting the regulations. This will act as some form of internal control for the event. Conclusion Cliffhanger 2011 comes with some legal requirements pertaining to the prevention of health and safety issues as well as the acquisition of licenses and permissions. It is recommended that the event organisers sets up a risk management team to monitor and control safety risks and also put in place measures to ensure that exhibitors and partners acquire the necessary licenses and permissions. Outline Executive Summary.............................3 Introduction.........................................4 Event Context......................................4 Legal Issues..........................................5 Health & Safety....................................5 Licensing & Permissions.......................7 Recommendations................................8 Conclusion............................................10 Reference.............................................,11 References Antoniolli, Luisa (2008) “Tort Law of the European Community” Tort & Insurance Law, 2008 Vol 23 pp213 – 240 Bowdin, G. A. J, Allen, Johnny & O’Toole, William (2006) Event Management Oxford: Elsevier-Butterworth Cliffhanger Official Website (2010) Available online at: http://www.cliff-hanger.co.uk Accessed: 27th May, 2011. Cloonan, Martin (2007) Popular Music & The State in UK: Culture, Trade or Industry Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing. Gardiner, Simon (2006) Sports Law London: Cavendish Publishing Ltd. Holmes, Oliver Wendell (2005) Common Law Stilwell: Digireeds Books House of Commons, (2009) The Licensing Act, 2003 6th Report of Session The Stationery Office. Manchester, Colin, Poppleston, Susanna & Allen, Jeremy (2008) Alcohol & Entertainment Licensing Law Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Read More