“The team at Harrier have a practical and pragmatic approach to Event Health and Safety and are always on hand to offer advice and guidance. Helen and Jo were a pleasure to work with this year and provided the whole team with a sense of reassurance and supportiveness throughout the whole Festival weekend.” Lily Brimble, Festival Manager
The event
Truck Festival is an annual music festival held in Oxfordshire that started in 1998 and celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2022. Truck is a four-day celebration of the best new and established artists filled with whacky entertainment and a unique community spirit.
How did Harrier add value? – The client’s perspective
“Harrier have worked with Truck since 2016 and after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic we were delighted to be working with Helen and team again.
Harrier provides a suite of documents including Event Risk Assessments and a Construction Phase Plan. They also review all supplier documentation and act as our On-Site Event Safety Advisors – ensuring our event runs smoothly.
During this year’s event build we experienced extremely hot weather and Helen became our resident ‘Ice Cream Lady’. It’s quite normal for event personnel and contractors to dread the H&S team paying a visit but this year our staff and contractors were delighted to see Helen. She went above and beyond for our whole team, ensuring everyone was hydrated and keeping cool during the heatwave!”
What made this event memorable? – Our team’s perspective
Although part of the ice cream lady initiative was a fun way to meet and look after people, there were also some serious benefits:
- It enabled a positive first interaction with the safety team and meeting everyone on site meant they became comfortable talking to us and pro-actively reported hazards that they had spotted.
- We were able to talk to people about safety in a positive way as we had already built a good relationship with them that was non-safety related.
Our mantra of Putting People First left a lasting impression on the safety culture on site, with contractors saying they had never been looked after like this before. They viewed safety as a positive element and not just a box-ticking exercise.
Because of the relationships we built, and by being mental health first aiders, we had several conversations around mental health and concerns. We approached the event in our usual innovative, practical and pragmatic approach to keep everyone safe and are really proud of the relationship we built with the whole event team.
