Risk Assignment for Reading Festival

        Reading Festival, sponsored by Carling the brewer, is a three days long alternative music festival, every year on the last weekend of August. It is based in a huge camp site in the town Reading, which is west to London. Campsite safety is extremely important for the audience to enjoy the weekend, hence support the event again the year after.

        There has been over 500 crimes reported last year, and one 18 years old boy was dead during the festival. One audience even had part of his ear cut off; one 35 years old man was arrested. Police did a random search and found 164 people in possession of illegal drugs, although majority of the crimes reported were theft (from tent) and deception (people selling fake tickets).

There are many hazards threatening the safety of the audience at the campsite, especially when large amount of alcohol is usually consumed during the festival. There is list of agents of harm:

  • Camp fire
  • No fence to separate the camp site
  • Glass bottles
  • Ropes on the tents
  • Portable gas cooker
  • Drugs (syringes, tablets)
  • Electrical Products
  • Sun burn
  • Alcohol
  • Metal objects (chains, rings, spikes)
  • Plastic bags
  • Promotional products
  • Children

Camp fire

        Only 3 years ago, Reading Festival allowed camp fire, which enabled audience to enjoy themselves even at night, but this can also lead to tragedy. After the influence of alcohol, especially after consuming a huge quantity, people can fall on the fire, or to burn harmful substances (such as plastic or even drugs) in the camp fire, or even worse, if the camp fire is getting big it could even cause a huge fire.

        If someone falls on the fire, depends on if anyone around pull him away from the fire, it could be minor burnt on the skin to seriously burnt. If people start burning plastic and such, the smoke it causes might make people feel ill, but usually nothing too serious. If they keep adding wood to the camp fire, causing the camp fire to grow and start burning viciously, that could lead to a huge fire, causing major damage to personal belongings and death is very likely.

        The Festival has fire engine patrolling 24 hours in case anything happens, so if any on the above do come in reality the fire engine should arrive in no time to minimize damage.

Fence

        There are no fences to separate the camp site from the woodland area near by, which can be dangerous especially for female. Although it didn’t happen in Reading Festival 2003, but in previous years there had been girls that got dragged into the woodland and raped. Wild fox from the woods can also come into the camp site, although it is not likely but there have been report that fox attacking human.

        There are security guards patrolling the camp site area 24 hours, police vans going around the camp site, and also there are many watch tower located throughout the camp site to stop these from happening.

        

Glass bottles

        After alcohol, some people might become more aggressive, in a festival there has 60,000 audiences violence is sometimes unavoidable. Every year people have bottle smashed over their head, both in the camp site or in the arena, causing serious harm to the person. Even if nobody throwing glass bottles or be attacked by someone using a glass bottle, the bottle itself could also be a hazard. People can trip over them, or if there is a broken bottle on the ground people can cut themselves by accident.

        Tripping and minor cuts can be treated easily at the ambulance van, which is located at the entrance of the camp site. But if someone is hit by a bottle over the head he might need to be sent to hospital immediately for treatment.

Join now!

        At Reading they do ask for volunteers to pick up rubbish and glass from the camp site, and these people will be rewarded with alcohol in the arena, this can stop people from tripping over glass or stepping over broken glasses. And security guards are patrolling to stop people getting into fights or throw bottles around.

Ropes on the tents

        Ropes on the tents are often being tripped over, especially at night when it is hard to see, although no major damage is caused by the hazard event, unless there are sharp object on the ground as the person ...

This is a preview of the whole essay