Posted By Andrew Kurdziel Safety Checks at Conferences We are in a similar situation and we have to hire our facilities for conferences etc. The issues that we have had are: 1. Make sure anything that they plug into your electrical systems is PAT tested. 2. Make sure that they don’t leave leads lining around were people can trip. We have been trying to get floor-mounted plugs fitted into our conference rooms for years to avoid this but no joy yet. 3. Make sure any posters and displays do not block off fire exits or fire points 4. Find out what they are presenting. We have had some strange presentations including those involving naked flames and, I kid you not, a clown on a scooter. 5. Make sure that there is a house keeping bit at the beginning of the conference including, fire and other emergency evacuation arrangements, are there any fire drills due that day. You will need to do something about disabled visitors noting where disable toilets are located and what sort (left or right transfer etc). 6. If you are setting up out side caterers make sure that they know your H&S rules, hopefully they won’t be using naked flames which might set off your fire alarms. They should also not disrupt the normal routes around your site in particularly emergency routes. 7. Make sure that the caterers clear up any food and they don’t leave spills. Greasy mayonnaise on vinyl floors is not a good thing. 8. Finally decide where the visitors can go on your site and ensure security arrangements are in place to stop them wandering about. Usually these things go off smoothly but once at a conference organised by a large confectionary company, I was suddenly called, to be told that the conference organiser had decided to hang half-ton gantry from a roof beam. They did this without consulting anyone important like H&S or FM, but relied on the advice of the business manager who saw her job as saying ‘yes’ to anyone who hired our facilities. Life’s never simple