Welcome to Safety Sisters, the podcast about the people who keep you safe at events and beyond.

Today, I'm speaking with Rachel Jackson, someone who has a very similar career path to me, started in event management and has evolved into crowd safety.

We studied the same crowd safety and risk analysis masters at Manchester Metropolitan University.

And so it was wonderful to speak with Rachel and hear her stories, her experiences, and how she faces the challenges, good and bad, in this industry.

Yeah, so I...

You planned my own wedding.

And yeah, I don't know if I would recommend it, but I did.

There was parts I enjoyed in the sense that it was organizing an event, right, which I did enjoy and actually creating something that was really nice.

Yeah.

For all the people coming.

I did write another management plan.

Did you actually?

For your own wedding?

Except 10 pages.

I went like, obviously, a lot of the guests were event managers.

They were like, there's this.

They're like, at the very back, inventory, wedding dress, nice and easy.

I'm like, what?

You could just forget these things.

You could forget those things.

How many men have forgotten their suits?

That's true, actually.

I didn't put suit down for a little bit.

Could have forgotten it.

Yeah.

I mean, my cousin's planning hers and she is not stressed at all.

Yeah.

And it's in March.

No, it's not.

It's in May.

Oh, right.

And she's like, cool.

I'm like, who's him?

Manny herself?

Yeah.

I'm like, how many people came in?

She's like, oh, I don't know.

We'll see.

We'll find out.

I'm like, really?

She's like, yeah.

Do you want to bring anyone?

I'm like, that's not how weddings work.

They're expensive.

You can't just bring whoever you want.

She's like, yeah.

They do not care.

They are so chill.

Wow.

Amazing.

But it's in a castle in Wales, which is cool.

And they're into like Harry Potter and all of that kind of thing.

So they have in a, I mean, don't this is going to be aired before it doesn't matter um they're having a colin the caterpillar cake and then they're cutting it with the swords that they owned that like they like kind of play swords they're cutting colin the caterpillar with the sword that's amazing how come you if you wanted to do wedding planning when you went to university how come you What changed your mind?

I think part of it was I emailed so many local garden planning companies in and around Cardiff, South Wales, just for some experience.

But I didn't realise how hard it was and how difficult it was getting a shot without experience.

And that kind of three year period when I was in uni, nobody was willing to give me the experience of just coming to Shadow.

I was offering it for free.

It was so hard.

And then I...

the Olympics was 2012, the year I graduated.

And I saw a role online and I thought, you know what, just apply for that.

And didn't in a million years think that I would get the role because it was a management role way above my pay grade, what I thought at the time.

And the person that took a shot on me, that was it, kind of formed the start of my career in sports events, really.

Oh wow, that was a job.

I was always kind of interested in the food element.

I think people neglect food at events and you always get given like a meal deal or just something that doesn't sustain you for the hours that we work.

So it was amazing.

It was an amazing opportunity.

It was in Cardiff, Millennium Stadium and then the training ground was around the corner from my old primary school.

So it was really nice being kind of so close to home and obviously forever grateful for.

given me the opportunity.

He's passed now, sadly.

But he was the one that kind of kick -started my career in sports really and it's kind of gone on from there.

But yeah.

Wow.

I don't look back and miss weddings though.

I just think it's so different.

Yeah.

To what we do.

And so did you then stay in sport events after doing London?

I did an internship with Barnardo's again in Cardiff and then applied for a full -time job with them and moved to London in 2015 and that was the kind of first bit of this is real life full -time job move to London event experience so did that for Barnardo's working primarily on London Marathon their kind of spectator participant journey those running on behalf of Barnardo's and that whole process of the ballot getting them in fundraising all of that which was amazing and then I took a bit of a risk at 27 left that job and started an internship with Ironman started right at the bottom.

What made you do that?

Where was that decision?

I really wanted to do operations.

And while Barnardo's gave me an amazing kind of foundation and unbelievable experience, it wasn't the actual planning of the marathon that we were doing.

It was parts that kind of went along with it.

So one of my best friends saw the role advertised on social media and I thought, well, I'll just apply.

I had the job and then I haven't looked back since then.

Ironman was unbelievable.

Hard, but unbelievable.

The best team I think I've worked with.

Crazy experience from kind of the UK, Ireland, Middle East, Turkey.

Like I've done some amazing events with them.

And then in 2021, took another risk and went freelance.

And here I am.

But in that time, in that time, you also took another risk.

I did.

you decided to study the masters that we've now both graduated from in crowd safety and risk analysis.

Where did that decision come from?

So when we were in lockdown, everybody was posting all over social media, how many people can you fit in a supermarket?

And how many people can you do this?

And that was really intriguing to me.

I wanted to do a master's for a very long time, but didn't really know in what.

Didn't really want to do a master's in event management.

My degree was in that.

And I thought, what else can I learn that I haven't already got from experience kind of that a master's will give me?

And then saw the crowd safety and risk analysis master's and thought, yeah.

I'll do that.

So started in 2020 in the middle of lockdown and graduated, well, I'll graduate next summer, but was awarded my MSc last week.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

So when you started, I was submitting my thesis.

We got an extension because of the lockdown, but yeah, I was submitting my thesis.

So how did you sort of, what did you love about the course and did it actually change your perception of where you wanted to go with your career?

Yeah, I think I loved it from learning something new.

I like being pushed out of my comfort one and I like being around people that know more than I do.

And I like learning and listening to stories and all of that kind of element of working in events.

And I think this was so new, but also so relevant to every event that we do.

And I've worked on some events previously where there's been no crowd management plan.

Um, it's not something that's always thought about and it's always kind of, as we know, that's, that's the local authorities or that's the police or that's someone else's responsibility.

So coming into it, learning how much actually goes into it.

And it's been really nice to actually see how much has grown over the last couple of years as well.

I think loads more events taking notice of crowd management.

A lot of people are putting plans in place.

And I think it's nice that crowd safety is finally becoming a.

hot topic, but one that's actually taken seriously rather than kind of passing it off as my event's going to happen regardless.

And, you know, they'll come and they'll go as they always have.

I think that's the danger point that we're at with, but we've always done it this way.

And did you have any inclination with your first?

So actually going back to that first job in CCW.

So I, my first big contract was also London 2012.

So we're similar ages.

And I credit the fact that I was working for music venues and doing hospitality and lots of sort of well -known venues that sort of got me through the door of getting my CV, you know, seen to.

And then also the people that actually interviewed me and giving me that chance, just like you said with Kieran.

So what do you do you think that your CV or your previous experience?

supported that because as you said when you were at university you can't work in like weddings without experience and you weren't getting to the door so what change what allowed you to get through the door do you think apart from before you back here and so getting your application in.

I did a lot of volunteering while I was at uni, um, with charities and just with kind of small local events close to me.

Um, but I was also a waitress.

So I think that kind of customer service element always helps no matter what job you do in any part of your life.

If you've had a customer service facing role at any point that teaches you those core skills like remaining calm.

I will absolutely get you catch it for the 17th time.

That kind of.

It just makes you humble, I think.

And going into the interview, I had some experience, you know, in various things I could pull from, customer service being one of them.

And I think Kieran just saw something in me to give me that opportunity, as well as my degree.

So the Olympics was obviously over the summer, I took a day off to go to my graduation and then kind of saw it through.

So I think part of it might have been previous experience, volunteering roles all combined, but then part of it must have just been and my drive and passion, I think, because I think that helps as well with the hours being so long.

If you don't love the industry, there's no point, because it's not fun most of the time.

You're outside, you're freezing cold, you're in the mud.

You know, the hours are crazy long.

You don't get fed very well.

So all of the kind of welfare points that make a job a job, you don't get in the industry, but people tend to stay in it because they love it.

And I think I'm definitely guilty of that.

So with all those negatives, which I think would put Anyone listening who doesn't work at events like, why are you doing it?

It's a good question.

Why are you doing it then?

I love it.

I love seeing people's kind of, it sounds really cheesy, but seeing people's dreams or goals be achieved at the event.

Obviously I work primarily in sports.

So if I take Ironman, for example, my favorite, favorite part of the four years I was there was at the end of every event, my manager would be in my ear from event control telling me this athlete had four minutes.

to get to the finish line or they wouldn't make it off.

So I'd be behind them, usually in a kind of a gator, basically screaming at them very positively to move quicker.

So he would say, you know, they've got three minutes, they've got two minutes, they've got one minute.

And it was, I felt like I had to get them to the finish line.

So the more I was there, volunteers were joining from different aid stations, anyone that we passed on the way would join in and run with this person to get them across the finish line.

and I did it I don't even know how many times over the four years I was there and every single time I'd be like biting my nails thinking did they make it I would stop they would you know do the final kind of 100 or so meters and I'd be at the finish line waiting just watching the clock to see if their time was under 17 hours and every single time it reached the 16 hours 59 minutes I was like, oh, thank God.

And then my manager would go, yeah, well done.

Here's some cable ties.

You know, start taking the branding down.

I'm like, let me live for two minutes in this glory.

But that was it for me.

It didn't matter what happened, what the weather was, whatever it was for the whole week or so that we were on site.

That part was what made me want to do it again and again and again.

And I still get that from seeing people leave an event happy.

It doesn't matter what it is, but for sports, that's what it is.

It's getting that final, final person across the finish line.

I couldn't do it.

I couldn't do it.

I mean, maybe if you were shouting at me.

I do not have that stamina.

No, I don't.

I mean, you know, the slogan is anything is possible and we could do it, but whether I would choose to is a different story.

But these people are unbelievable at, you know, the sheer determination in finishing the event.

That's what I got from it and I still get from it.

you can tell now just by that story how much I loved that part of my job.

Oh, it's made me like I'm like goosebumps just even hearing your story.

And it's really it reminds me so in the other episode with Marcel.

So Marcel from from our crowd science course who I've known now many years and he works on the marathon majors and he says it's it's his that's what he gets from it.

Just that knowing that people are so happy and so full of joy and have completed, you know, what they set out to complete and set that challenge for themselves and achieved it.

So, yeah, I think, yeah, I don't know.

There's something about most people I ask who work in events.

They say it's because we're here to make people happy.

But what I don't like is the fact that we do it to our detriment of our health and our welfare and our well -being.

And then accidents happen or incidents happen because, you know, we're working way over our hours or not being fed right, not being fueled right.

I love that you actually allude to that in your in your focus of what's and I talked about that in the EBIT conference in Cologne, where they fed you so well.

I mean, it was all vegan food, but it was so fancy.

I don't want to say fancy, not that vegan food isn't fancy.

But it's I'm just trying to describe it like it was so sort of nothing like I'd ever seen before.

and so everyone was so well fed and there's just this sense of like you feel respected you know if you're well fed it's like oh someone cares about me and the work that I'm doing is respected have you seen that change in any of the events you've done recently?

I have to be fair so one of my kind of main things when I was at Ironman was the food element so staff catering was was on me and and one of the main requests I used to get from the team was can we please have vegetables for dinner?

And I think when you're away, it's so easy to do convenience food of just a sandwich or a burger and chips or whatever it is, because you're so busy that sitting down for an actual meal that's relatively balanced does wonders for the next day.

But since leaving Ironman and going freelance, it's been a bit of a mix.

Some companies are unbelievable and they give you a full kind of, depending on how long you're there for, either two or three meals that are amazing.

And then some, it's kind of there's a voucher for however much money.

or whatever it might be, sort yourself.

So I think it does kind of depend on where you are, if you're in a venue, if you're in the middle of a field, on what's around you.

It is changing, but I do think with budgets though, especially now with things being cut and the cost of everything, it is hard to find that balance in sustaining people's day rates and covering travel.

Cause I mean, train costs are...

ridiculous.

But then also, you know, providing decent enough welfare that there's enough tea and coffee or whatever that might be, but also a meal that keeps you going for 12 hours outside.

You know, it doesn't have to be hot, but that would help.

And primarily, you know, most of the events we do are in the rain.

given where we live.

So I think it is different, but then the Middle East, you know, the spread there was a literal three -course buffet every meal.

So I think it just depends on where you are and what the event is, to be honest.

Are you happy that you won freelance?

Yes.

This is going on camera.

That was hesitation.

I am, but it's always this time of year where you get to, I'm never going to get another job.

There's no events now until June.

What am I going to do for the next six months?

And it's always that.

Uh oh, period.

I think every freelancer goes through it.

This year has been particularly difficult.

I think I've seen so many posts on LinkedIn where other freelancers have said, you know, is it me or is this year really hard?

So I think this time of year is always a bit nerve wracking.

But I've learned through lots of conversations with you to trust the process and it will be fine and put out what you kind of get in and manifest what's next, you know, and let those good events come to you.

So that's what I'm trying to do now.

This side of Christmas.

Go with the flow.

Yeah, we can't push a rope.

No.

Yeah, no, that's, that's good.

I mean, it is, it is scary.

And it's always scary.

Like, especially when, you know, you're looking at your budgets and you're like, Oh, I don't know when this is, you know, that's sort of like recurring.

But even if I think about the idea of security, I mean, anyone's job, like, no matter how, you know, people are employed, companies go bust overnight.

Like anyone can lose their job.

Um, even local authorities go bust, you know, we've seen.

So it's, it's an interesting thing about this whole security.

And when I was working full time and wanting to go back freelance, I felt, um, I felt like I couldn't, I felt powerless to like take that leap and go back.

And I had to like write down and remind myself, you used to do this.

You've done this more, like you spent more of your life working freelance as a contractor than you have employed.

Like what's, and it's.

It's such a weird, like, experience to literally feel like I cannot, like I'm stuck.

I don't know if you felt that when you, or was it just natural taking that leap to doing Iron Man?

It was natural to a point.

I think I credit Iron Man for most of my kind of experience and the situations that I've been in with them that you wouldn't get elsewhere, like sabotage and kind of all of those kind of things at events.

So they gave me, or Iron Man gave me an unbelievable foundation of knowledge, basically.

So taking the leap felt a bit natural to me at the time.

And I am grateful that I have done that.

But equally, I think there is a fine line.

I mean, I'm coming up year three now.

So I am trusting the process a lot more than I did year one and two.

I also said yes to everything year one and two, because I didn't know what was next and how.

how the next project would kind of come along.

I think I was lucky when I went freelance because so many people left the industry in COVID, which is a shame.

We lost some unbelievable talent.

So when I went freelance, there were quite a few opportunities that I could take with both hands.

So I am kind of fortunate in that sense, but also just, I think it's just taking the leap of faith.

And, you know, I've had people message me and say, how did you do it?

Would I recommend it?

That depends.

It just depends on your personal circumstances and whether you can go potentially a few months without anything coming in.

Um, and then whether, you know, whether you're restricted to just London, just the UK or whether you, you know, you're okay to go abroad.

There's opportunities everywhere if you can take those risks and follow them.

Did it just, did it feel right in your body?

Yeah.

You just, it just felt like the right, yeah.

I always find that when it's when it's gonna happen it's like it's almost like your body's like gone out the door to it and your mind's going wait hold on what I'm not dressed what's going on where are you going um you said something about sabotage yeah what what did you okay you need to tell me about this what happened I mean I don't know whether it's because there was a lot of road closures that came with closing down for an Ironman event but we had a couple of scenarios where it could have got a bit One, I mean, it's in the local paper, was in Tambi, lovely town, West Wales, and the Ironman Wales event was happening.

My first year with Ironman, I think it was the last event of the season, and I just got a come to event control now message.

And I was like, I'm on my way.

What did I do?

So I ran into event control.

Literally, I was like, I didn't do anything.

It's only just started.

And basically what happened is somebody still don't know who, had poured what they think was kind of chip oil or cooking oil down one of the descents.

The descent went quite kind of, it was a steep descent with a sharp turn at the end.

Four or five different locations where if they hadn't found it would have been detrimental.

They managed to get some local authority jumped in, obviously got some sand or hay or whatever it was to kind of soak it up as best they could.

And then I had to redeploy my volunteers, which is why I got the call to go into event control.

So had to redeploy volunteers or any team leaders that we could to those areas to get athletes to come off their bikes, walk down the descent, get back on and carry on.

So all of this happened in like a.

Half an hour, 40 minute period.

The person running event control, you want her in every event control that you're in.

She was unbelievable.

And had everybody 10 minute updates, like a whiteboard was going on.

It was unbelievable.

And that was my first, oh my goodness.

First of all, what is going on?

Why would you even do that?

And second of all, this is amazing how this has been handled.

And then they put, the bike course team put a sign out that just said oil on the, on the back of a normal kind of freestanding frame.

And after the event, the athletes were like, why was there a sign for people selling oil when the event was, you know, the event was on, so the road was closed.

We had no idea.

Wow.

And they still don't know who did it to this day.

Wow.

Yeah.

And it could have been catastrophic because pros go very fast.

Yeah, something really bad would have happened to a number of those.

But all that because of the closed road.

Wow.

I mean, there's been smaller ones like people put pins like tacks on the run course or marbles and things like that.

And you just think, why?

You know, if you're that hell bent on sabotaging an event, just take a sign down or, you know, do some, if you're really going to do something, do something that doesn't compromise the safety of people who it's not their fault.

It's not anybody of any of the athletes fault.

You know, if you're annoyed, you're annoyed at the organizers.

So take our way, find your story.

It is so scary.

I mean, I get it.

I get being mad.

I get, you know, when you close the road for a considerable length of time, I get it.

Right.

Because we've all been impacted by road closures.

I mean, Worst that has ever happened really with me is where they just take down the science and then park.

And then now you're stuck with having to remove a bunch of cars.

Yeah, but actually, it like strategically wanting to impact the safety of that's, that's really concerning because and you know, maybe they're so angry, they don't think about the consequence but Yeah, that's really, really concerning from the perspective of someone who's just like angry about the road closure.

And so with that, the person, the event controller or the person you're watching in event control, was that someone you normally worked with?

Yes.

OK, so you had a relationship with them anyway.

So what were you seeing in them that really sort of struck you?

I think it's how calm she was, given the gravity of the situation.

and just how she just took control of the control room.

There was local authority in their police, steward companies, senior management that was sent out to various points on the course to monitor how bad it was and feedback.

But she just commanded the room.

It was just amazing to watch.

And there was obviously every kind of stakeholder was in there doing their part to fix or...

eliminate the situation as best they could.

There was no part of her, whether she was like a duck, I don't know, but there was no part of her that showed any kind of flapping concern.

It was, this is the situation, this is how we're going to fix it.

You've got 10 minutes in your teams to figure something out and we'll come back and report back in 10 minutes.

So in 10 minutes, she was writing down different points from the police, local authority, medical, whatever it was.

Okay, go back to your groups.

And it was like an unbelievable tabletop that you just didn't think this is actually happening.

Someone has actually gone out of their way to do this, to potentially cause serious harm, yet we're still going to roll with this and nobody was impacted the way they wanted them to be.

It was more of an annoyance than anything else and what they set out to do wasn't achieved, but that it's so scary that someone woke up that morning and thought, I'm going to do this and I'm going to time it when I feel like the checks have stopped.

So how often does it happen?

You've mentioned a few different examples.

There was that one which was the worst one.

And then there's been kind of marbles or like tacks on the on the wrong course, which is that's annoying more than anything else.

Yeah.

And then the others, it wasn't really sabotage, but it was kind of a reaction of when the fires happened in the north of England, the bike course was cut short for safety reasons, because there wasn't a actual fire.

It was really hard to convey the message of while the fire isn't still burning, you can't still cycle up the moors.

It's not safe.

So it's kind of, it wasn't sabotage, but it was kind of backlash from athletes, which I can understand.

Yeah.

No, they paid for an event.

They lose in a certain amount of distance on the bike course.

There wasn't enough time for, you know, the organizers to.

implement that somewhere else.

And I think it's the bigger picture of road closures costs so much money, you can't get them in a week.

You know, you can't fundamentally change a course in a week.

So it's not so much sabotage there, but it was kind of a not very pleasant reaction to something that was completely out of our control.

Yeah.

And it's just dealing with that, I think, is communication across the board in how you convey, I understand your frustration, however, There's nothing we can do.

Yeah.

And we would still love you to take part.

But, you know, it's really difficult to get that message across.

I do not envy those in marketing and comms.

Yeah.

And trying to get that message across.

Has he ever actually, have you ever come face to face with an angry sort of resident or someone impacted or angry?

Yeah.

You have?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was stood in front of a car, so they didn't come out onto the course with athletes on the live.

I thought, well, I didn't even.

OK, we're getting a few more additions to the sabotage list.

I mean, there was a new estate, I think, and maybe they didn't receive the road closure notices, I don't know.

Or the leaflets kind of through the door.

But this guy was angry.

he was hell bent on going wherever he was going.

And you can go, you just have to wait for a motor escort because right now there's 2000 cyclists coming down this road at a very fast speed.

You can't just off you go, you know?

And he was revving his engine and I thought, I haven't got time for this.

But I had a motorbike helmet on.

So in my mind, I'm protected.

And as he went, I stood in front of the car and he like slammed on his brakes.

And as he did that, he was like, what are you doing?

And as that happened, a group of 15 cyclists just cycle past behind me.

It was almost as if I was like, that's why I did that.

You can't just go somewhere.

Your appointment or whatever you're going out for isn't important to risk the lives of these people who think it's a closed road event.

Their mentality is there's no vehicles on this road, so I'm going to go as fast as I'm going to go.

My job is to protect that.

You know, so I'm not saying you can't leave your house for eight hours.

I'm just saying please wait five minutes And as soon as it is safe to get you out, we will get you out And it's that kind of communication, but I mean that was very stupid of me.

I didn't think I just Didn't think but then if you hadn't done that Would he have driven into 15 cyclists, you know, so did you did you protect you know?

You just don't know you just don't you don't know.

No, you don't know.

Um, but I mean, I think getting stuck in a road closure is such a it's such a thing that happens.

I think one of the most recent ones that I think it was a large parade through central London and it was a doctor, well they claimed to be a doctor, needing to visit an appointment and in order to get out they had to cross the parade route and they were like Like, this is an atro, this is a counter -terrorism, anti -terrorist traffic regulation order.

Like, there's no way we're opening this.

And then, like, the calls were getting back into event control.

We're like, it's a doctor said they need to get to their appointment.

And we're like, I mean, this event kind of happens every year on the same day.

You know, but it's tough.

It's tough because, you know, it's so easy for comms to get missed or made.

You know, there's things that I've forgotten and, you know, I've not.

planned and prepped and it is really difficult to try and facilitate stuff, especially when in that moment, like the only way out was through the role closure.

So to try and like facilitate that, but it's, yeah, that's kind of when you get the heat of like another human being is when they're trying to get through a role closure.

I understand.

It is inconvenient.

They didn't ask for the event to be there.

I get it completely.

But I think in that moment, like the sabotage person, they're so in their own minds of, I need to go here though, and you're stopping me.

There is no bigger picture of, but if I go out right now, I could potentially, you know, crush into a cyclist or what that might look like.

So I think it's really hard to try and remain calm, have the empathy that you need in that situation, but also deliver a message of, you're not going anywhere for the next 10 minutes.

So we can have this back and forth, or you can just wait for 10 minutes, the motor will come and then you'll leave.

Yeah.

You know, and it's really hard to try and convey that in a positive way.

When you're being swooned at and cars are being revved at you and there's a line of you know, it wasn't just him It was a line of vehicles.

They all wanted to leave and like you all can I'm not saying you're housebound You just have to give a bit of grace here and work with me.

Yeah, and we'll get you out as soon as we can.

Yeah, so Joys of events.

I know and you have to stay calm because there's no point you escalating No, because it just it they just keep kind of going one up on you then you know you end up Well, my husband got hit by a car.

But that was that was in the Middle East.

They just they just didn't they weren't listening to or like, you know, talk about listening to an instruction.

I mean, you know, we had traffic management.

It was pointless.

I mean, we were we were managing a lane coming off the motorway and they were like, I don't want to queue.

So just like kept driving on the motorway, turned around and drove up the down ramp and just drove on the other side of the road.

Or we had like marked out areas of sand in car parks and they just like with their really fancy cars like with.

crash, kind of drive into these huge concrete blocks and push them out of the way of their car so they didn't have to queue into the car park.

Yeah.

So we're like, why are we here?

They need to learn from the Brits.

We love a queue.

Yeah.

Well, and this is all thinking like you mentioned earlier about kind of surplanting your culture into another culture to deliver an event, because you're the one, as in you collectively are the ones with the event management experience.

You're invited into another country with a completely different culture.

to support them in delivering that event, but then you have to think about how that culture works.

And it was really interesting being brought out to do sort of crowd management and traffic management on Ingress and Egress and them just not listening to you.

So like all these plans that we were putting in place to keep people safe, I'm like, where do these plans, what happens when they start attacking you?

And like this obviously happened at Wembley's and we were like, hold on.

The reason I study crowd safety is because we've learned in that shift, especially from Hillsborough, is that we need to keep people safe.

And the crowd aren't the problem.

You know, we were the problem.

But then actually now, since COVID, when crowds start breaking in, I'm like scratching my head.

This isn't in the book.

Hold on.

They're not meant to be attacking me.

I meant to be keeping them safe.

Now what?

It's hard.

I mean, New Year's Eve last year, there's videos on TikTok.

I was on a gate.

in a part of London and the whole thing is ticketed obviously now and there was a group of teenagers, I mean I don't know how old they were, on TikTok they look like teenagers.

I was the other side of the fence so I didn't see this firsthand but maybe kind of 18 to 23 as a generalisation and they wanted to get through the kind of green cordon shields that they put up so they kicked and kicked and kicked the gate.

The steel shield?

Yeah.

and they kicked it until it opened and they obviously didn't know that behind them, behind the steel shield, was a line of Met Police.

They knew it was happening.

But I was the other end.

So all I saw was a police officer kind of answer the radio call.

They hopped my fence and ran.

And I was like, what's going on?

I didn't get...

the information.

So, um, then so later that evening that that's what happened, you know, with the birth of where I was.

But once they had broken the shields, there was nothing they could do because there was a line of police there.

So then they just kind of turn around and walked away.

And I'm like, well, what was the point of that?

You didn't achieve anything.

Yeah.

What was the point?

But I think since COVID, like behaviors, events have changed massively.

Yeah.

Massively.

Nobody is thinking of everyone, not saying nobody else is generalisation, but not a lot of people are thinking of others when it comes to positioning yourself at an event or your safety or anything like that.

It's either herd behaviour or FOMO.

And you'll do whatever it takes to...

FOMO, you mean like filming, like filming yourself going in or something, or just joining everyone.

Just the general fear of, well, I don't know what's behind that shield and I want to be behind it, so I'm going to do whatever I can to get behind it.

Yeah.

And then they didn't achieve it anyway.

Yeah.

You know?

Well, I mean, one of the, this is one of the things I explored in that, the article I wrote on post pandemic crowd behaviour and how, because of the social identity in terms of the unconscious agreements that we make when we're together collectively as people and then collectively as society.

So we've got these sort of unwritten rules, right?

So we all agree in the UK that we cue and we're polite.

And if you skip the cue, how dare you?

You're going to cue hell.

Whereas in other cultures that's not, you know.

So what happened from the psychological perspective is the government, we went into lockdown, the government put these really strict measures in place, which, you know, really interesting, as I mentioned earlier, Lucy Easthoke's book, When the Dust Settles, challenging all of the work that the emergency planners have put in and actually weren't taken by the government.

The government just wanted to know how to control people, basically, how to influence behavior.

So put all these rules that we had to follow.

We followed because, you know, this is what you do in Britain, you follow a rule.

But then What did the members of the government do?

They, they didn't adhere to their own rules.

Yeah.

And so people lost loved ones, people missed out on really important things because of following these rules yet members of the government.

So there was this like, you told me what to do.

I did it.

Now you're not doing that.

I'm now not going to listen to you.

I now lost respect to Neil and I'm now going to push back against you because you're in a position of authority.

So from my perspective, Wembley was the first venue.

because it was where they had the pilot, the events pilot, the research program.

So it was the first of any to come back.

England, it was the Euros.

England were in the final of the Euros.

England were playing in their home, you know, all hallowed ground, Wembley.

So it was like taking a bottle of Coca -Cola, shaking it up and then like opening it by going, no, no, no, don't spit it out.

Like stay calm.

I mean, what do you expect?

Like from that perspective, what do you expect?

Obviously we you know, we, it was slowly building the break -ins, but it kind of went from like 5%, 10 % to like, that was a huge disconnect.

But it's that seeing someone in a position of authority and going, I'm going to go against you.

So from that perspective, I get it, right?

They're angry.

We are angry.

We are angry of how we had to endure the lockdown and they didn't.

So pushing down that wall is that like metaphorical, like, actioning of that kind of anger.

From my perspective, that's what I kind of think.

I think for me, like, there's no, I mean, I haven't done any research into the age or the psychological effect, but people who were younger in lockdown, you know, if you went in at 14, you came out, it's two years, you come out at 16.

Those are really informative years where in that time you are testing boundaries, but you're testing them at school and with your parents and with your peers.

You didn't have that.

You were locked inside.

So you didn't have the whole, oh, I'm going to go and get drunk in a field with my friends.

because you weren't allowed.

So now when they come out of lockdown, I mean, everybody lost two years, but I think depending on when you went into lockdown, I think it shaped the behavior because I would never react like that, but I can from a point understand the 14 to 20 -ish year olds who are being rebellious because they never had that opportunity to test them in the way that I did when I was younger.

So I think it is very different and they're just portraying that behavior in a different way.

It depends on where they live.

They were locked in a flat with no outside space, no gardens, nothing.

So that is damaging, you know, to society in general.

I was, I'm very thankful and lucky that I had a garden.

So I think, you know, you go into a flat, especially in central London, where it was, there was no one out.

How'd you, you know, how'd you come back from that overnight?

You can't.

And it's, you know, they, they did the whole right, we're going to lock you in for months.

Oh, actually.

eat out to help out, we can all go outside again now, bring your bubble and all go and have a half price meal.

Oh wait, no, no, no, we're going to lock you down again.

And it's a bit like, how am I supposed to behave?

You know, that nobody really knows.

And everybody followed the rules that I know purely because I was keeping my mom safe.

And, you know, I think it's just kind of a knock on effect on that, but it was up and down so much.

And then you see their parties and everything else that they did and how much money was spent not helping.

But just on PP, there's probably still a warehouse somewhere.

And was never even appropriate.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That part, it does build resentment and anger.

And if there's another one, I probably speak from most people listening, we will not be locking down again.

Then no one's going to follow those rules.

Yeah.

Do you know, and if I look at, so the Edelman Trust indicator, I think it's every year.

Trust is at its lowest in governments and a lot of businesses, I mean, worldwide.

And, you know, I think COVID is part of that, but especially in Britain.

Yeah, probably.

And also, I mean, back to your comment about behaviour changing, you know, since Covid.

I mean, what else have you seen in the events that you've been doing?

I think it's mainly just that they're kind of not following the rules as such.

I know nobody really loves rules, but they are there for a reason.

And if there's capacity on event, it's for a reason.

If there's a steel shield that's been closed, it's for a reason.

So I think it's that.

But what I saw last year, and I'm interested to see if it happens this year, is the amount of fake tickets that were sold and shared for New Year's Eve particularly, but also other events.

Like, you know, loads of families, and I felt really bad, but families had travelled from Manchester down to London for the event and their tickets were fake.

And they bought them online from somebody selling official tickets.

They go, I can't go, do you want mine?

They paid a premium for them because it's New Year's Eve and it's London and they were completely made up.

How do you then deal with that?

Because they can't come in, but technically they have a ticket, but it just won't scan on my scanner.

So it's really awkward in that behavior.

I think it's mainly what can I get from this situation and how does this benefit me?

I think that's what we're seeing.

As a ticket holder.

Or like somebody selling, you know, from a society, I think it's gone a little bit selfish and what can I get from this?

Gotcha.

Yeah.

You know, and how can I make money from it?

whatever that might be.

I think that's kind of, it's not nice, but also I think that's just a kind of, I don't know, I think it's gone a little bit selfish at the minute.

Hopefully we can change that, but how do you inject positivity into a society that's been here?

I don't know.

That's a good question.

Do you have any parts?

I don't know.

Well, Taylor Swift did it.

Yes, she did.

She is just a rare center, I know, isn't she?

until she gets bitter, then she's like the bitter queen, the queen of bitterness and re -recording.

But I mean, so if we, because this is part of what I wrote, right?

Because I'm like, OK, if people are breaking in, I mean, Astroworld, we know the disaster.

We know there were, even with the appropriate tickets being sold, there was still not enough room for everyone in front of that stage.

That's the start.

I mean, also the setup of the barrier system.

I don't think was to facilitate crowd management.

I think it was to facilitate the Apple TV recording the camera.

But then people were breaking in from the morning.

And this was forgotten about.

And the only reason I talk about it is because, A, it's to remind people that people are still breaking in.

And B, it was because Wembley had only happened a couple of months ago.

So it was seared into my brain watching the fences being pulled down.

And I was watching it on the news.

I was watching it on it was on social media and it was like from 10 o 'clock in the morning.

And then if you look at the Houston police department's report, they've got their log and it's like breaking, breaking, breaking, breaking.

So how many more people were were there?

And then there was some event in New York and the people were breaking and it was just like breaking.

And I'm going, OK, like there's thousands of people were out, you know, now if you are outside Wembley, you're not allowed to drink alcohol.

Um, and, but then we were seeing in America that we were having thousands of people gathering outside of Taylor Swift concert, but they weren't trying to break.

No one tried to break in.

And like thousands of people outside.

And then when she came to Europe, it was happening in Munich.

It happened in loads of other venues.

I mean, Munich was incredible because you had the hill and you saw people like that.

The hills covered in people.

And so they're able to look into the stadium and watch the show.

And then there was sort of like within the Swifties on like Reddit or in disco servers, sort of going, you know, remind each other, don't tailgate, right?

Instead of tailgating.

You know, let's and it was that shared social identity, right?

We all respect Taylor.

Taylor respects us.

Don't.

risk the event by Taygating.

So in kind of encouraging people to stay away, but people still did show up.

And actually, I think there's a photo I downloaded, I saved from somewhere on Reddit of outside Vancouver on like night three, which was her last night, which was on the weekend, still like thousands of people outside.

And I know that I think Vancouver, like the city, they put a lot of effort into security and safety, but people were still, but no one broke in.

So they can do it.

Yeah, I think it depends on the crowd.

I mean, I went, she came to Cardiff and I went to the egress.

That's what I like to do in my spare time.

That's why I literally drove into town to watch the egress just to see how it happened.

Because Cardiff's small, you've worked there.

There's one train station and obviously from the stadium, they came straight out and it's either bus station, train station, taxi rank, wherever.

The amount of nightclubs that were open, ironically, trying to get people in, I'm like wrong crowd.

All of these people are probably under a team.

Yeah.

And they had like offers.

Come on.

Where was anyone going into the nightclub?

No.

But I was knackered from.

I was so I was exhausted.

Yeah.

I just wanted to dance it.

But you know, I was also over.

The way they did the egress from.

The stadium into the train stations.

They've kind of got this whole set up now and they just rinse and repeat for every event.

Yeah.

And it's actually really cool that the train station is one way in and one way out.

Yeah.

There was an electronic signs everywhere.

Now, this isn't probably not new to you, but I've never worked an event in Cardiff, ironically.

So go in to see that.

I was like, this is actually really cool.

Which way do I want to go?

It was flags everywhere.

There was, you know, signage stewards and the stewards would not let you go in the wrong way.

Yeah.

Even just for me to take photos.

They, you know, sent you right the way around the back to go in queue lanes for certain training platforms.

And it was so well managed that I think that's something that John from in the round had put in years and years ago or started to with a couple of other people that have done these types of things.

Yeah.

We, so we put it like Robbie Royal Cup 2015 put in a really kind of coordinated management system of where you start filtering people in by destination.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I don't I don't think it was done before 2015, but from 2015 onwards, I think that was then taken and developed.

But it looked really well.

The egress worked perfectly.

And then the taxi rank that's always there was then filtered into a queue lane and the stewards managed that and they put you in the taxi.

So the way that that is done was really cool.

And I think I was there for about half an hour and within half an hour, it was like business as usual.

Hold on.

What's the capacity of the stadium?

70 or 1000, 80 ,000.

So half an hour.

It was like, they just came out and just went to their respective places.

Gosh, so like, we're not completely clear clear.

Well, over an hour, I think you're still kind of queuing down Olympic Way.

So that's, that's cool.

They could have, I don't know which way they all went, but I was, by the time I left, they were filtered massively.

Wow, that's amazing.

Into the train station.

But they were all chilling combined, right?

Yep.

Yep.

singing a few songs as they were leaving.

Everybody was singing Glitter and Sparkle.

But I wasn't there long.

I was probably there total 40 minutes.

Wow.

Well done then.

Yeah.

I don't know what the train station looked like.

Or the back of the train station, but where I was.

We're not putting them on trains.

We're just showing them down to the spits.

Literally.

Where I was stood.

It was the main road though.

So from there, they have to go in whichever direction.

So that part was pretty clear.

The taxi run wasn't clear within half an hour.

People were still still when I was leaving.

The train station queues were still quite long when I was leaving.

But in terms of that, out of the stadium, choose your direction.

That part was filtered out massively.

Yeah.

And I guess because they're probably not very drunk.

probably just tired and wanted to go home that they, you know, it's just quite like an easy, easy kind of crowd.

I mean, we had that as well.

It was like, although because London was the second, the second round of London was obviously a week after Vienna.

We came down to the, like to Olympic way early, well early, like, you know, an Arab, well around time gates opened to sort of pick up the atmosphere.

Like everyone seemed so subdued.

And I don't know if there was just this sort of like, I don't know.

There was something different this summer.

And I just don't know if it was because of Vienna or because of the riots as well.

They put something out though, didn't they?

Asking people not to come if they didn't have tickets.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they did that the whole time, right?

The Taygating.

But like these were all ticket holders coming in.

But it was just really like kind of like we were all going shopping.

You know, it was just very like, I don't know, maybe because I was hungover.

Maybe it was really magical.

But then I also noticed Notting Hill Carnival a few weeks later, there was like this sort of subduedness of people.

I do wonder, because I wasn't in England during the riots, but obviously that had a huge impact on the country and stuff.

I don't know, were you, did that affect any events you were doing or did that, no?

No, I mean, I think it happened in Cardiff, but it was very minimal compared to here in London.

And it was kind of over and done with pretty quickly in Cardiff.

I didn't come to London, I saw quite a lot and I think it's scary.

Crowds of people anyway are scary, especially if you're not in the crowd.

And if you're in the crowd, it depends on the event, but it can be quite, I don't like this, I want to leave.

And I think that's where things can go wrong.

Cause if you can't get out, then that whole behavior, your behavior then changes cause it's fight or flight.

And I think I wouldn't have wanted to be here in that because you also don't know if it's going to turn.

one way or the other, you know, you don't know what the intention is behind that.

I don't know.

It's just the way in which it's delivered isn't the best.

I just wonder, is it still part of this whole backlash against authority?

You know, there's a research article into the capital riots.

And it was kind of there was something in there about how they knew it was like they didn't know they weren't prepared for this level, but they were prepared for.

a smaller level.

And I was like, yeah, that reminds me of Wembley.

We were prepared for like a level.

We were prepared for like what what actually kind of transpired.

But I mean, you have you've mentioned a few kind of sabotage events, but have you ever worked an event that like went so wrong, there was the LinkedIn keyboard warriors the next day tearing your heart or tearing your event apart?

No, no, but only.

I mean, no, but I'm not going to say that it's never going to happen because I think with LinkedIn as well and with Facebook, people have an opinion.

Some people have an opinion that they can do it better.

And I'm like, welcome to the industry.

Come, you know, come and work with us.

You know, I think of a fresh perspective is always good.

And I think it's always good to have opinions.

But when it's looked at in such a narrow kind of headspace and not looking at the bigger picture.

You couldn't have foreseen what happened.

It doesn't matter what report says, oh, but you knew.

You knew to an extent.

You can't predict the behavior of 4 ,000 plus people.

The Baroness Casey review as well.

Some really amazing things, but again, collaborative.

And that's what we're not seeing because no one wants to take responsibility for an area that in essence doesn't make you any money.

And that was one of the things that came up.

You're talking about Zonnex.

Yeah.

One of the things that came out of my dissertation was the amount of people that left me a comment saying, there's no money in Zolex.

Really?

Yeah.

I don't know who they are, but I'm glad that they said those things because it formed really good research.

Is that why it's not taken seriously?

So is that why collaboration doesn't happen because it doesn't generate money?

And who's going to, someone needs to pay for it.

So you're spending money, but you're not making any.

Yeah.

So who is, who is spending it?

Yeah.

That's so interesting.

I find that really, I just, I don't know, I find that really short -sighted because I mean, well, so going down Olympic way, there was a, um, they were giving out free samples of some perfume and they had a huge big activation of this perfume.

And the, you know, as you're, you know, in one X, the external one, you know, from that the port of entry to port of entry or exit to the venue.

And I'm back again.

There's so many opportunities to like increase the experience.

And that's definitely worth money or can generate revenue.

Yeah.

And also, like, if you look at the psychology of it, we The joy comes not from the reward.

It comes in from the anticipation of the reward.

The dopamine is in anticipation.

Once you get the reward, the dopamine drops.

So where people are like primed to spend money or to be, to be receiving something like a, you know, a brand activation, like being open to it is before the event.

Yeah.

Did anyone talk about that?

Nope.

That's interesting.

It was a lot of, it should be a collaboration, which we know.

It should be collaboration.

It needs to be a joint effort.

It has to include every stakeholder that's involved, but there's no money in it.

And I'm like, well, no, but why are we holding back resources on safety purely because it's not profitable?

There's no money in public events either.

You know, like there's a lot of - What was your dissertation question?

Whose overall responsibility is Zone X?

And what was the answer?

There isn't one.

The answer is everybody, but my personal opinion is somebody needs to be overall responsible because if, say we're all in a control room, something happens in Zone X and we need to push the alarm back an hour.

Who makes that decision?

Someone needs to be the coordinator.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But also somebody needs to, from a safety point of view, say This situation is not safe.

We're postponing the event, cancelling the event, pushing it back an hour, deploying more resource, whatever that is.

Someone, four people can't make the decision.

Someone has to say, right, it's not safe.

This is what we're doing.

Who is that person?

We know it's not the police, although the amount of responses that came back saying it was the police was...

Like honestly, it was quite a few that said it sits with the police.

Local authorities, there was four different people from the venue or local authority.

They all had a different answer.

One said them, one said the venue, one said the police and one said the event organizer.

Oh, funny.

They weren't even aligned.

Yeah.

And then the police said, one person from the police said the venue and one person from the police said the event organizer.

So even the police weren't on the same page.

So everybody who answered had a completely different opinion.

on who was responsible.

That's fantastic.

So I couldn't answer the question.

The question is everyone and no one.

That makes, well, that makes the chapter even more, the Purple Guy chapter even more important because that's what we agreed on, right?

Was that A, every event is different because every local authority or every kind of setup structure is different in a different area.

And B, you need to all accept your responsibility, but appoint a coordinator.

They did that in Birmingham.

2022 for something.

There was, I don't know what group it was, but Transfer for West Midlands were the coordinating body of the kind of group that included the event organizer and the police and, you know, local authority.

So you can do it.

It can be done.

And I mean, Wembley do it really well.

I think Wembley are a really good blueprint, right, because they've got their onex group.

And that they've the local authority and the landowner and Wembley have all put a pot of money in.

And then through that, you know, they they deliver all these amazing things to to create, to start the experience once you come out of the of the train station.

You know, your experience starts.

You're not in the venue yet.

Yeah.

And like like priming people, I just.

It's it's so important.

I mean, like I was at the Harry Potter studios recently and.

You're you don't go straight in.

It's not like the doors open and you walk in.

There's a whole set of which I'm not going to say I don't want to.

Yeah.

There's like a whole sequence of things that you go through first before, you know, the main thing starts.

And of course, because it's like it's wedding your appetite.

Right.

It just kind of builds you up for the whole experience and gets you ready for it.

So, you know, I think there's so much that can be can be done.

But there is that sort of.

Like I see so many kind of near misses and it's usually with like really well established old venues because we, you know, this is how we've done it.

And I don't know, like I totally understand from their perspective, like why do I need to pay to change something if no one's ever died, you know?

So is it also our perception has changed, right?

Because 40 years ago we would have said, oh, it's the crowd, they're awful.

Whereas now 40 years later we're going, oh, it's the organizers need to work hard.

Same situation.

But our perspectives have changed.

Yeah.

I mean, I had an interview last week and one of the questions was, how do you deal with somebody not wanting to change?

And if you come into this job, fresh perspective, new ideas, whatever, and somebody is, you know, they've been in the role 20 years and they do not want to change.

How would you deal with that?

And my answer was, but it happens every day.

It happens every day.

Being a female in the industry, walking into something and you either kind of Perceptions are you don't know what you're doing or you know, you look a certain way and whatever that might be.

So I'm forever proving my ability to do my job and to do my job well.

So to me, it's just a normal part of something I would go to work and do day to day.

And he was like, really?

And I was like, well, yeah, it's just the amount of times I've been at an event and I've done what I've said and then afterwards they've gone, you did that so well.

Thank you.

But I think it's just a normal part of, it shouldn't be normal, but it is just a normal part of the industry.

Yeah, being underestimated.

Yeah.

I mean, I quite like it when that happens because it's always nice to, you know, prove people wrong, but it can get really tiring to constantly feel like I'm always kind of proving myself and, you know, I can't just...

go and do what I need to do.

When I was in an established team, it was very different because they knew my abilities and it was fine.

But I think go freelance, you're in a project for two weeks, two months.

I feel like I'm constantly proving myself and proving my ability and, you know, that I do know what I'm talking about.

And trying to kind of be heard is just part and parcel of it now.

So for me, I'm like, that's not a challenge, that's an everyday.

Was there any woman on the interview panel who was just a man?

So he just didn't resonate?

No.

He didn't understand.

But I think their case was, we've always done it this way.

Yeah.

And I'm like, that's totally fine if no one has died.

However, things have changed now.

The crowds have changed.

The industry has changed.

Venues have changed.

Things need to change, you know, and the whole, if it's not broke, don't fix it more.

So it doesn't really work anymore because while it's not broke, it could still be improved.

And I think that's where we're kind of.

battling now to make things better.

I think as well, if a venue or an event don't want to learn, then I'm just not going to bother.

I'm like, okay, take care now.

Bye bye then.

Like, you know, I'm not going to try and, I don't know, just like when I was younger, I used to really try and push to be heard or to say like, this needs to change.

But like, if they don't care and it's their event, like, why should I care?

I'd rather spend my energy making something better with a team or with an event or a venue who wants to make things better.

And also I think with working freelance and coming onto a project, because it's usually a short period of time, you come on and it's usually quite urgent.

I always feel like, oh my God, I don't know what I'm doing.

Like every time I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing.

And then it's always something different.

Latest thing I did was writing a community emergency plan for a community, a residential area.

And I did it with like an emergency planning expert.

And together, we were like, we can figure this out.

But at the start, I'm like, OK.

And it's like having to like sit myself down and go, you have written so many emergency plans and you've written so many crowd management plans.

Like, you can do this.

But I also think because when you come onto an event, and you've not done it before.

Like you have to learn everything.

You are new and you can't be expected to kind of come in and just sort of figure it out.

I always find that like when, especially when there's like a festival event or a venue, you have to like get to know like how people respond to the space and you can't just do that suddenly.

Like you have to do that over time and observe and learn and sure those budgets aren't really.

Yeah, I think it's also the dynamics of the team you're working with as well.

And they all know each other.

They're all established.

They know the processes of the way the organization works.

You're coming in to literally deliver a tiny part of a huge, you know, events calendar potentially.

So it's understanding all of that, delivering it well.

And then you walk away at the end of it.

So you never really get any...

closure from it or I'd love to do this again because I would do this differently.

Yeah.

You know, working on the same projects year on year.

I think some freelancers have got it absolutely nailed down and they do the same things over and over again, which is amazing, but some don't.

So you never really get to tick the box of going back a second time and going, I would do this differently and you know, it'll have a different outcome.

You kind of, you're left in limbo almost of, I hope they take my feedback on board, but if they don't, Okay.

You know, it's, it's a really weird kind of space to be in.

Yeah.

And it's even if I, I mean, there are some events I've done over and over and I just like a whole year passes and you're like, really?

They haven't changed this and like, okay, I'm going to have to deal with like, you know, square peg round hole or whichever when you, um, and know that you're going to have to kind of bubble your way through.

Um, yeah, that's really like energy draining.

Um, Yeah, but I love that answer to that question.

And I do look back and think, or often when there's like an interaction happens and there's an assumption made and I'm like, oh, and I'll kind of brush it off and then look back and go, ah, I was the only woman in that meeting room and they kept talking over me.

Ah, I had this idea, but then when the guy next to me proposed it, they said it was a great idea, but I'm the one who said it.

Yeah.

Why do people not listen to me, but they listen to the very deep spoken, tall male next to me?

You know, and yeah, that's it's.

It's been it's I don't even know where I just I don't have any words.

No, I mean, it shouldn't be the way it is, but.

It is the way it is.

And I think the more women that kind of come into the industry and do well in the industry, it will, it will change.

But also I think there's a, there's a different dynamic that women bring to safety and security compared to men.

And that can help.

So rather than not listen, I think if I could encourage everybody to just take the opinion on board, you don't have to follow through with it, but just understand where it's coming from.

We're naturally more patient or calm or empathetic or whatever those words you want to use in a situation.

And we think in networks.

We're not linear thinking.

No.

So I think it does help if someone's kicking off, having a female presence there can calm things down.

I mean, I was at an event last summer where a woman had to get the kind of police involved for a situation and all the police were men and the person that reported it in and saw it happen was a man.

So I ran over to offer her a female comfort and the men were straight in with questions.

What happened?

Who was he?

Where was it?

And I was like, give her just two minutes to process what's actually happened so she can compose herself and answer your questions.

And I moved her away from the middle of a crowded venue.

We moved somewhere a bit quieter.

You know, she gathered herself and composed herself for two minutes and then she could answer the questions.

I'm like, you can't approach.

a situation to fix it, like, you know, men are fixes.

They can't approach every situation to fix it.

Sometimes you just have to let the human compassion side come through.

Then she was ready and gave them everything she needed.

But the initial, I need all of these facts right now.

She was like, I can't, you know?

So I think women are needed in the industry to dissolve or resolve situations in a different way.

I think women and men can benefit from each other.

But we just have to be heard more than we are.

Amen.

I love that.

Thank you.

Hopefully.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, this is the point of the podcast, right?

This is why I started Safety Sisters.

And I mean, it's, you know, like I'm interviewing everyone, but the purpose is that we're giving that kind of platform because what I found was, I mean, I had no problem speaking up.

often to my detriment, but I just couldn't help it.

I remember when I left one job and my manager was like, never stop challenging the status quo.

And I was like, is that cold for a next pick?

Never stop being a pain in the arse because I just wound her up all the time.

I get scared, not scared, but apprehensive about, you know, voicing my opinion, especially if I don't feel like I'm in a situation where my safety has been taken into consideration.

I don't like voicing that because I'm like, well, a man wouldn't need to question.

this scenario, but I do because I have to think about things differently.

So I don't often like bringing it up.

So sometimes I just accept it and, you know, just say, well, I'm not going to go back to that event again, or I'm not going to go back to that organization again.

But I don't necessarily bring it up at the time for fear of, you know, not getting another job or posting it on LinkedIn.

And then people go, I'm not going to hire her.

She, you know, she has too many opinions or whatever that might be.

So I don't tend to say stuff publicly at all.

which I should, but it's hard to try and, you know, I see so many posts and I'm like, I wish I could say that.

I wish I could tell my story, but I don't for fear of.

I see it as so there's, I mean, things I've, you know, challenges that I've been able to stand up there and then to the person and then others that I've brushed off and kind of ignored and then over time look back and gone, oh my God.

Yeah.

I cannot believe I accepted that.

Like, why didn't I, you know, like hit the fire alarm?

And I can see it like back to the psychology.

It was like they were always kind of new jobs and I was trying to fit in.

So I would kind of like suck it up, right?

Except, except the status quo of what's going on because you want to fit in.

You don't want to be, you don't want to be the outlier.

So.

I, I've done it myself.

Like I've changed my behavior.

I've allowed myself to be manipulated and I didn't know I was being manipulated until I was out of the fog of, of that, you know, that group of people and went, Oh my God, did I actually behave like this to be accepted?

Um, but I see it as, so they, you know, an action or in action, something's happened and now you feel like your boundary is being crossed for whatever reason.

Like if you're put into a role where it's unsafe, but then If that's brought up to them, the risk is that they feel shame for what they did.

And so we don't want them to feel shame.

So therefore we take their shame.

And then because we take their shame, we give them our power.

So it's like this shame power swap.

And now we feel powerless to then stand up.

Because I do bring it up at one event and I said, I'm not qualified or comfortable.

to do this.

And the reply was, I disagree.

You're more than qualified.

But I wasn't.

And I never lied on my CV.

There's no point.

You know, I mean, the industry is way too small.

I didn't feel comfortable.

And they told me I was qualified, but I wasn't.

The qualification needed.

I don't have it.

Still don't have it.

So I tried and was dismissed.

So I was like, all right, okay.

Wow.

So it's hard.

You challenge and you don't get anywhere.

You don't challenge and you don't get anywhere.

So what's easier being less difficult.

Yeah.

What qualification?

Was it a legal qualification?

Okay.

So, so they were actually, so they were breaking the Health and Safety at Work Act and they were also putting someone in a role, a legally required role that didn't have that qualification.

So they're breaking a number of laws here.

Did you report them?

No.

No.

And I won't either.

You know, it's not, because then what will that do to me?

small fish in a very big pond.

So how's that going to, it's nothing, nothing will happen.

You know, um, best it was years ago now.

So I don't even know if, you know, too much time has passed or whatever, but yeah, never said anything.

We'll, we'll not say anything, but try to bring it up.

And it wasn't, it was, you know, it was dismissed.

So how do you, then what do you do?

You know, you, then you just think, well, I did try.

So I just won't again.

But you won't work for them again?

I won't work for them again.

And you wouldn't let your friends work for them?

No.

Yeah.

So, you know, and also there's the kind of like, you know, between us as colleagues and as friends in the industry of knowing who is a reputable company.

And I think as well, like in safety and security, I mean, it's so like it's so publicly known about sham companies, companies that, you know, open up today, do a lot of stuff under the table, hire people really low rates and then fold and then tomorrow start a new one.

So, you know, and so there's a lot of like, and that's, I'm talking about the SIA, the security industry authority, like security companies.

So like from that perspective, it's, it's a huge problem.

But I think from my perspective of like how to combat that is to, is to just not give that, like not feed Like not go back and work for them.

And actually choose to work with people who respect me.

And then kind of from that we build, you know, like that gets stronger.

It's that whole thing of like, you know, you've got two, what's that story?

You've got two wolves in your mind or whatever.

And it's like, one is anger and the other is love or something.

And like they fight which wolf wins.

And the answer is the one you feed.

So, you know, if we keep kind of feeding, that poor behavior.

I mean, even for training a puppy, right?

The whole thing of like, you don't scold it, you ignore the bad behavior and you reward the good behavior.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it because I don't have any other way of like trying to solve it.

If a close friend or a colleague that I was, you know, pretty close to an open with, was to go and work in that company.

Then I, you know, it's not that I would bad, bad mouth them or shame them or anything like that, because that is not going to get anywhere.

You know, I don't want to feed negativity with negativity, but I would just say F by I, you know, if they asked my experience, then I would share, but I wouldn't go out of my way to start telling everybody the story because that's just my experience and it might not be everybody else's.

So I'm not going to kind of put that out there.

detriment myself and them because maybe it was a learning for both of us.

You know, I, I'm going to take it as a positive learning lesson and a negative situation for what it was.

It is hard though, because if you look at other, you know, like the Me Too movement or even, you know, women who have taken men to court for like sexual assault or basically just any, any boundary crossing, right?

And how this sort of the victim blaming, it's just so quick to blame the victim.

But then you think like, well, why would they go through all of this pain of being dragged through a court proceeding if they made it up, you know, especially against famous people.

So yeah, but then by staying silent, they kind of get away with it.

So well, there was something yesterday, I think from Jay -Z.

A girl has accused him when she was 13.

And the comment section was why did she wait 14 years?

Why didn't she wait 14 years?

She was 13.

She was a child.

Do you know what I mean?

It's probably taken her that long to process what's actually happened to her.

Plus, it's Jay -Z.

Is she going to win against him?

And now this whole thing has come out with P Diddy and all of, you know, all of the rest of them.

Now is the perfect time for her to tell her story because she'll be believed.

If she'd said it when she was 13, they probably would have either ignored her or paid her off.

made a sign in NDA and his story would never have come to light.

So don't blame her for waiting 14 years.

Congratulate her for finally being able to speak about it.

Like shift it.

Yeah.

But I mean, as you said, there's things depending on, you know, what has happened and how we kind of like resolve it in ourselves.

Sometimes it's worth like facing that.

And then other times it's worth going, well, I'm just not going to go back.

to that, you know, depending on and then kind of processing in a different way.

But I mean, I think what just saddens me is the fact that we all have a story, like everyone has an experience.

And, and, you know, I, like, I kind of this year, I had decided in myself to, like, leave the industry, basically, I was like, I just don't like I wasn't it just didn't feel like I was getting any traction.

And I just didn't feel like what I was creating, like everything that I was working towards as being acknowledged or respected or accepted.

And, you know, I wasn't getting the work that I thought I would be getting.

And so I was like, fine, I'm out.

I'm just going to stay being a Pilates teacher.

And, you know, and then kind of as I made that decision, then there was like slowly bits of work coming in.

I'm like, OK, maybe I'm in.

So like, I've been kind of teetering, you know, kind of going, I'm fed up of this.

And and I it was What really the kind of.

Where I was really bitter was everything I did with the whole Taylor Swift and that art, it took me like 10 months to write that article and just all the research I did and all the talks I did on like one X and Taylor and kind of telling everyone in Europe, you know, as in Holland and in Germany, doing talks and podcasts and like, make sure you prep for when she comes because the one X thing and blah, blah.

And then my dream job being this, like being one X coordinator for her tour, as if that ever existed.

And then someone on LinkedIn said that they were doing that very job.

I mean, you know, maybe they made it up.

Maybe.

Who knows?

But I, but I was like, hold on.

What?

Hold on.

Like, this would have been my job.

I just was so angry and bitter.

I was like, I'm out.

I quit.

I remember us talking about that, actually, and I can completely emphasize with the bitterness feeling or, I mean, for me, I would kind of have it as jealousy for me.

I sat with bitterness.

You told me to sit with it.

I sat with it.

For me, it's more a jealous of, I wish that was me, seeing something that you really want.

And, you know, it's a redirection, I think.

She'll come back.

And I think she'll hire you when she comes back next time.

Yes, please.

We'll send her this.

Absolutely.

Send her your article.

But no, I mean, sitting with that is hard.

And I remember we had a conversation about it and you being so open and so raw with your podcast or the video that you did and you posted that, that takes a lot of courage really to it.

First of all, admit it.

And second of all, admit it publicly.

You know, so I think it's owning it yourself.

And as soon as I saw the post straight away, I thought, really?

I get that completely, but it's a rude direction.

Yeah, exactly.

And now I've come to this point of like, OK, you know, guided, like we're always being kind of like shown, you know, closed doors.

OK, it means there's another door, another door to open.

So I'm like, which door?

But I mean, you also took a bit of a break, right?

I stepped back this year following.

kind of the first two years freelance, I said yes for everything, like I said, and didn't realise, but the back end of last year, I was in the thick of burnout.

And being a freelancer and feeling burnt out is hard because you don't have the safety net of I can go on the sick for a couple of weeks and get it paid or any of that.

So I found it really difficult to just keep going.

And I did take, I finished a project in August, I took September off and I went on holiday with my best friend.

to New York and I was the most miserable I've ever been.

How she stayed with me for five days, I don't know.

I've apologized to her so many times since.

I just wasn't fun.

Wasn't myself.

Had no energy.

Everything was annoying.

And I just thought, this isn't my normal personality.

Like what's going on?

So came home, reevaluated and took on another job just to see me through Christmas.

That then led into, through to June this year.

At the end of that, I was like, I have to take a break because I don't like who I am.

I'm snappy.

I'm, you know, I have no motivation.

It's impacting personal relationships as well as work.

And so I took a step back for myself.

It's the best thing I could have done.

I did have a lovely job working for the Royal British Legion, planning the Festival of Remembrance in Wales.

So that was amazing.

It was part time.

It gave me something to focus on.

keeping in the industry, but doing something that was really rewarding at the same time, but also giving me a chance to reflect on myself and just kind of redirect my energy, really.

And I think for me, it was really hard trying to open up about burnout because people go, are you just stressed?

Of course you're tired, you know, the events, the industry is really long.

It was more than that.

I didn't feel happy in myself.

I wasn't content.

My whole personality changed and it wasn't a nice...

I didn't recognize who I was.

So was it that trip in New York where you spotted it?

You were like, hold on.

You just weren't happy.

You were just, you were like, just behavior was negative.

Yeah.

I mean, I was in one of the most amazing cities.

And you weren't enjoying it?

No.

No, and when I came home, I was like, I need to really evaluate this.

So, you know, took every step I could to try and get some help.

But, I mean, I feel completely different now.

I have way more energy.

My passion for the industry has come back.

I lost it completely.

I thought about leaving the industry as well.

I thought, you know, I'm not getting what I need or what I want.

Nothing is kind of moving at the pace I needed to.

Maybe I'll just do a complete career change.

But then I was like, I love what I do.

When I'm happy, I love what I do.

I'm really passionate about the industry and everything that I've worked for.

So I don't want to leave, but I was in this weird limbo and now I've taken some time out, reflected and actually kind of worked on myself.

I'm in a much better place and I loved Qatar when I went.

I was in a better place physically, emotionally, mentally to be able to deliver for the team that I was with.

but also I enjoyed it.

And I think that's, you know, I've come back and I'm like, I can't wait to go again now.

So having that passion reignited, it's been really nice because you, you know, you're in your job a long time.

If you don't love what you do, it's a long time until you get your pension, you know?

And I just think try and love it if you can.

But I lost myself for a little bit.

So what did you do?

What steps did you take them to?

took a step back and kind of the jobs I was in were quite high pressure.

So took a step back and did something a little bit kind of back to my roots, you know, back to when I first started and organizing something local with a lovely team.

It was just nice to kind of go back to that.

So it wasn't too stressful?

No, it wasn't.

And the event happens every year.

So new venue, so that, you know, that was a bit of a challenge, but it was the kind of fundamental aspect of the production of the event.

was the same.

So working with people that kind of knew what they were doing, and I was the facilitator or coordinator among that was lovely to just go back to that.

And then honing in on why you feel the way you feel like you're kind of behavior isn't a reflection of me.

It's a reflection of you.

And I think it's just being mindful of people reacting different ways to different things, but it's you don't know what's led them to that.

Yes.

Yeah.

You know, and I think when you go to events, especially when you walk into a project being freelance, you have no idea what that dynamic is.

So it's going in, not being like all of these bad moods are my fault, or all of this negative behavior is my fault.

I think it's just being really mindful in a I'm here to deliver this.

I'll deliver it to the best that I can, you know, best my ability.

I'll leave a positive impact and then I'll go again.

Especially with going to the Middle East, I was nervous.

So going into a brand new team, you don't know anyone, especially when you go aboard to this project.

I went in with a completely different mindset and had an amazing time.

Wow.

So I came back, you know, really happy to go again.

I think that's that whole taking the taking it personally, like taking that out of it.

Yeah.

And then especially when you go into like a control room or even at any of the roles, like they're very pressured and you have to like, I always use this analogy.

You have, it's like bringing a football team together and wanting them to like win the Superbowl, but they've never trained together.

You're like, you're putting a lot of demands on these people.

Um, but it's, yeah.

When we all come into a control room together, it's not just us.

It's like us on our whole lifetime experience.

Yeah.

And everything that's happened to us has come there too.

So like, are people easily triggered?

Are people afraid of things?

Are people really judgmental?

Are people like, and like having to come to a human being going like, you know, I can, I can see what your form, like the frequencies of light that are refracting in the back of my eyes and my brain are creating the shape of you.

But what are you going to say back to me?

What am I going to say to you?

Am I going to raise my voice?

Am I going to keep it down?

I think having that kind of compassion and empathy of going, whatever has happened with that person and why they're shouting has got nothing to do with me.

And then helps you to kind of stay calm if there was like a challenging situation or being able to resolve it.

So, yeah, that's amazing.

Wow.

Oh, thank you so much for, this is it, we really enjoyed this conversation.

We kind of went everywhere.

So thank you so much for being here today, Rachel.

Thank you.

Yeah.