“We’ll figure it out when something happens,” is a terrible way to deal with a crisis. And yet, many planners attest they don’t have the time and resources ahead of time to work on a crisis plan with rapid responses. Unfortunately, that puts a lot of people at risk.

Keeping attendees safe and secure is the focus of all planners, but a rise on crime, gun violence, and even natural disasters, is making it much more difficult for association planners.

Some of the first steps to developing a crisis management plan, such as identifying potential risks and vulnerabilities, and creating contingency plans for various scenarios are key to averting disaster. Here are the first two:

• Early warning systems that monitor social trends, media and the weather to mitigate the risk of possible issues.
• Establish clear procedures and roles to prepare for situations, such as evacuation, medical emergencies, natural disasters and security threats.

Tyra Warner, PhD, JD, CMP, associate professor chair, Department of Hospitality, Tourism, & Culinary Arts at College of Coastal Georgia and interim chair, Criminal Justice & Public Policy, is a consultant for association planners in drawing up contracts and is also a former association planner. According to Warner, many planners today are not considering crisis management their responsibility.

“When I did research a few years ago, planners all seemed to think it’s important, but they’re not all engaging in crisis preparedness,” Warner said. “I found most of them didn’t have the time or didn’t know what they were supposed to do. I think a lot of planners assume that if something happens, then the hotel will handle it, or the CVB will handle it, or somebody else on site will handle it. They think it’s not going to happen to them, so there’s a certain amount of putting their head in the sand. And then we get something like COVID that affected all of us and you can’t put your head in the sand anymore.”

Alan Kleinfeld, senior director of Arrive Conference Solutions, which provides specialized services and expert input, in Chicago, IL, believes part of the reluctance to tackle crisis management is a result of post-COVID burnout.

“We are physically, emotionally and mentally worn out by COVID, and for a lot of planners they’re just so glad to be doing face-to-face events, they don’t want to deal with safety and security. They don’t want to deal with weather events. They don’t want to have to think about anything outside of just getting together and having some kind of face-to-face gathering.”

There are also new planners post-COVID who are not well-versed on crisis management responsibilities. “There is a lot of turnover with association planners and we’re also getting a lot of turnover on the supply side, which is making negotiations hard all the way around,” Warner said. “They don’t know what to do with risk management. They’re still trying to figure out how to negotiate a basic contract. But then their party on the facility side or the speaker side, or whoever they’re dealing with, also doesn’t know what they’re doing, because they’re new. That really makes me feel uncomfortable, because if you don’t have somebody who’s been in their seat for a while, then crisis management really is far from anybody’s mind.”

Warner also noted that people tend to have short memories when it comes to different crises. In fact, crisis management doesn’t really change, just the nature of the crisis changes. For instance, planners were focused on the Zika virus when it came into the Caribbean and Puerto Rico, and so they thought that was the thing they all needed to plan for. But Ebola came next, and that became the focus. Like in the case of COVID or 9/11, that’s not something anyone could ever anticipate or plan for.

In the case of bomb threats and gun shootings, the number of incidents in the United States is staggering. As of last month, there have been 568 mass shootings in the country, according to Gun Violence Archive. The last one, as of press time, took place in Maine, involving 18 casualties and 13 wounded. Reportedly, this was the worst mass shooting in the U.S. since 2022, when 19 children and two teachers died at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Meetings and event are not immune to this kind of violence. Planners must always plan for the unexpected. MaryAnne Bobrow, CAE, CMP Fellow, CMM, president of Bobrow Associates, an event management company in Citrus Heights, CA, concurs that planners are not learning from history or from past mistakes. As a result, the turnover on the supplier side is posing a challenge to risk management, as well.

If we have another terrorist attack, are people prepared? Do they have their protocols in place? If the plans are outdated, do they still make sense? Are they updating them?

“That’s the kind of thing that I think we tried years ago to teach people — whether it’s any form of risk management, any sort of crisis — natural, manmade, whatever it might be,” said Bobrow. “So, why do we keep going back over the same thing and recreating scenarios when there is a body of knowledge? I just keep thinking, why can’t we learn from our mistakes and stop going back and making the same mistakes over and over again?”

Crisis Management Planning

One of the first steps in crisis planning is recognizing the variety of possible risks, including safety, health and even political issues that could disrupt a meeting. “People forget that when they’re doing crisis preparedness, it’s an all-hazards kind of approach that they have to take because you just don’t know what’s coming next,” Warner said.

Some of the strategies include securing necessary permits and insurance, developing a medical and emergency response plan, vetting vendors and suppliers and making contingency plans for weather interruptions, from hurricanes in Florida to wildfires in Northern California.

Conducting site inspections well beforehand is another crucial element to crisis planning and safety. Warner has conducted a variety of presentations on risk management planning, including basic training for staff and best practices in conducting site inspections.

“It’s simple things, just like walking the evacuation route in the hotel or in the convention center and knowing, if something happens, where you are going to gather to make sure your people all got out,” said Warner.

Kleinfeld’s background as a retired police officer helps when he is conducting inspections. He advises planners when they go on site to meet with the director of safety at the hotels or the venue where the meeting will occur and ask about evacuation plans and other contingencies, such as what happens if the power goes out or if the smoke alarm goes off,  or what happens if a main water line breaks and people can’t get fresh water in their hotel rooms.

“They may not be able to share written materials with you, because they’ll call it proprietary information, but most security people will be like, ‘Oh, yeah, well, if the alarm goes off, you need to tell your attendees to follow those lights, which will lead them to a safety zone.’ Then you can put that information into a conference app or registration packet or on the website.”

Kleinfeld believes some planners, especially those who are new in the field, don’t like to tackle safety issues because it is a broad topic and they don’t know enough about it. “I always tell planners, you don’t need to do it on your own,” Kleinfeld said. “Your hotel director of security is going to know what happens if they lose power or what happens if there’s an active shooter. You just have to ask the questions.”

As a good rule, planners should visit the venue and walk around the grounds. That face-to-face inspection is critical. “After I have met with the staff and maybe we’ve had dinner, I go down and sit in the lobby. I walk the halls, see what protocols they have to make sure there are no issues,” said Kleinfeld.

Researching the weather in a destination during the time of a meeting is becoming even more crucial in the wake of more severe natural disasters, from floods to fires. For instance, if you’re going to book a meeting in Miami in October, because they gave you such great rates, you’re going to need to do a risk assessment about weather events.

“You have to prepare for that,” Kleinfeld said. “Maybe you have to have generators brought in in case the power goes out or bottled water hauled in just in case there is no water. My advice is you need to do your homework on where you’re going.”

Some planners also prepare for the worst in anticipation of health crises at their events. Warner knows planners who travel with their own defibrillator, or at least double check the facility has an AED. The health preparation can also depend on the demographics of the attendees.

Contract Negotiations

Crisis management is integral in the contract process. One of the first steps for planners is writing an emergency action plan, but some association planners also need a broader plan for what happens at a meeting that might impact the organization’s business.

“There may be multiple plans that they need to write – short term and long term for one meeting, and then encompassing the whole business,” Warner said. “I had a client who I thought handled it probably the best I’ve ever seen. She had a safety and security checklist, and she would include that with her RFP.  She would ask them to have the director of security fill out the checklist and provide the information she was asking for regarding their safety and security. She wouldn’t review any proposal from the hotel until that was submitted. And she certainly wouldn’t sign any contract, and I thought that was so proactive on her part. She really showed that this was an important issue for her.”

When a planner starts the process of planning a meeting, safety and security should be included in the preliminary talks. “When you send out the RFP, you’re going to want to include something about safety and security and that can be a sentence that says please alert your director of security, or whatever, but you need to let the hotels or your venues know that safety and security is important for you,” Kleinfeld said.

One part of the contract that became a hot topic during COVID was force majeure. “One of the things especially COVID did for us with contracts is that it really helped us to understand our force majeure clauses,” Warner said.

“For example, a lot of people canceled meetings because the attendees were afraid to travel or were afraid to gather during COVID and fear is just not a force majeure. A lot of those ended up being cancelations and not force majeure type events. That was in contrast with when the government’s said things like, ‘You’re forbidden to have public gatherings for more than 50 people or 100 people.’ That clearly became a force majeure because it was illegal to meet. So, we found bright light moments like that, but there was an awful lot of gray.”

Acts of nature — earthquake, tornado, fire or hurricane — are clear cut when it comes to force majeure, while acts of man are often in the gray area. A contract expert such as Warner could advise on wording for risk management, such as force majeure.

“I had a client a few years ago, who had a meeting in Florida when a hurricane was headed straight for that city,” Warner recalled. “The hurricane hadn’t hit yet, but they wanted to be preemptive and cancel the meeting and move it somewhere else claiming force majeure. But the destination said, ‘Well, until the hurricane hits, it’s not force majeure because it could go somewhere else.’ It was a situation where the destination said no, and the group said we need to relocate before it hits. The force majeure clause didn’t get them out of it, because it didn’t say we can terminate the contract up to X number of days prior to the event, which is something you need in a hurricane situation.”

There are other protections on the legal side that planners can incorporate into their contracts or even registration materials. Kleinfeld suggests planners create a code of conduct or duty of care policy, that that will allow them to deal with situations as they need.

“For example, if your code of conduct policy says that hateful language or acts of violence are unacceptable, and then someone says something that is offensive to a person of color or an LGBTQ+ person, you’ve got it now in writing that they’ve agreed to follow this code of conduct. And now you’re going to be asked to leave the event because you violated that. You could put policies or expectations into written registration policies. You have it in the small print, and the person who registered for the meeting agrees to abide by that policy. You now have at least in writing something to protect you from liability.”

Crisis Communication Strategies

Another challenge for planners is deciding on a crisis communication plan, including who to contact and when, as well as how messages will be conveyed to attendees, whether through a meeting or special emergency app, social media or website.

“There are some best practices like making sure you’ve got somebody back at the office who’s ready to update your website because if there’s a really big crisis, they’re not going to be able to get through to the attendees on their cell phones, and they’re going to want information,” Warner said. “Making sure the person back home can update the organization’s website and at least put the information up there will help allay some of the concern of people who can’t reach their loved ones because the cell towers are down, or something like that. There is a lot of thinking in advance through what could happen and what contingency plans need to be put in place.”

Kleinfeld also suggests planners need an emergency response plan for different scenarios, including a crisis communication plan. The mode of communication can cater to different situations.

“The thing about social media or text is that everything’s so short. You don’t want to be misinterpreted, so maybe you end up going with a mass text, and then the text has a link, and the link takes them to the website where there is more detailed about what’s going on. We need that communication to be calm and factual.”

Communication before an event is also vital, especially for larger meetings where the planner will want to connect with first responders in a city, such as police, especially if the group is politically controversial.

Warner said, “If they’ve got a large convention like citywide, it’s important that they let the police know that they’re coming to town. A lot of that is working with the destination marketing organization or the convention and visitor’s bureau to coordinate some of that communication. Especially if a group is coming in and they have known protesters or detractors and they know that they could draw attention. Then it’s going to be even more important for them to reach out to the mayor and to the police and that kind of thing.”

Cybersecurity is another area of concern, especially in light of the recent issues with hacking into both the MGM and Caesars Entertainment systems in Las Vegas. Having an IT expert as part of the risk management team or on staff at the association can make a difference.

“I tell meeting planners, you don’t need to become an expert on cybersecurity,” said Warner, who suggests planners hire experts that can do the work for you. If you have IT people on staff, you need to make sure that those people are well versed and well trained in keeping up with whatever the latest is on cybersecurity and cyberattacks. And if you don’t have internal IT people, you must outsource that service.

While crisis management can be overwhelming for planners, Warner agrees that they don’t need to tackle everything themselves. “If you do one more thing, the meeting is safer than it was before, so don’t think about having to bite off everything all at once because that does get daunting,” Warner advised. “But have a good risk management plan, and work with the staff onsite.” | AC&F |