Guiding Questions to Help You Create an In-Person Event Safety Protocol
In our last blog post, we outlined the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to the party planning industry. You can check out the full post here, but we’ll sum up the main idea for you:
We don’t know exactly when the time will be right to make a full return to hosting grand scale physical events regularly. We do know that physical events are absolutely possible with specific safety planning. – right now.
Over the last several months, we weren’t idly waiting for the right time to make the shift back to the in-person events we are used to. Between hosting our hybrid events, we’ve been hard at work creating safety protocol frameworks to implement once we were in the clear to make the switch. Your attendees will want to know safety protocols for two reasons. One: they want to know what is required of them to attend your event. And two: they want to determine if they will feel safe attending.
Here are all of the safety related considerations you’ll want to have in mind as you begin planning your upcoming physical gathering.
Questions to Ask Yourself When Defining Your Safety Protocol
Testing & Vaccines
• Will you require vendors, staff and guests to provide proof of vaccination or negative test results?
• What type of COVID tests is accepted? What kind of vaccination proof is acceptable?
• When do staff and guests need to take the COVID test?
• When are results required? If they took the test within 72 hours of the event start, will they need to take a rapid test the morning of your event?
• Do test results need to be verified or does at-home collection suffice?
• If on-site testing is part of admission to your event, who is managing that process? What medical requirements need to be addressed?
• Who pays for testing?
SCREENING
• Do you want to require a COVID-19 symptom screening survey at check-in?
• Do you want to perform temperature checks at the beginning and/or during the event?
• Who will perform them?
• If anyone starts having symptoms, how will they report those symptoms?
• If your vendor has symptoms, are you prepared to replace them?
• Do we want to perform temperature checks at the beginning and/or during the event?
PPE Usage
• What PPE will we require for both staff and attendees?
• Under what circumstances is PPE required or not required?
• How will you handle situations where PPE may interfere (e.g., eating, standing at the bar, drinking, dancing?)Social Distancing
• Will you ask attendees to socially distance?
• How will distance be measured?
• If social distancing is not part of the official protocol, what is acceptable?
Report Violations
• Will vendors or guests have a way to report when protocols are not followed?
• How will you handle protocol violations?
• How will you communicate protocol violations?
• What happens if I test positive on-site or after the event?
If you use these guiding questions when preparing for your party, you’ll be off to a solid start hosting your first physical gathering of 2021!
Our last word of advice would be to hire an independent ‘Covid Safety Compliance Officer’ if you indeed plan to do any onsite testing. That way, they can handle all of the testing and address any other safety concerns that arise along the planning process.
For some additional tips in creating an airtight safety plan, check out our Social Event Guide to Covid Safety below.
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Innovative Party Planners is your resource for event design and planning in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Virginia. To learn more about our event planning services and how we can help make your event one of a kind, contact us by clicking here or call (410) 998-9999.