I recently completed a two-day training in Sport and Special Event Evacuation and Protective Actions in Franklin, Mass.
The course was one of eight courses offered by The National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) through The University of Southern Mississippi. The series is provided through FEMA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service – TEEX. Sessions were led by NCS4 adjunct professors Rick Findlay and Susan Tamme.
The course was advertised toward those involved in the 2026 FIFA World Cup matches hosted at Gillette Stadium. JGPR provides communications strategy and public information officer services to numerous communities in New England and beyond, and over the past two years, JGPR has found itself deployed to provide communications support to national and international events, including Lex250, Marine/America 250 and the Pulitzer Electric Air Race in Ohio.
When we provided media relations and emergency operations support in Lexington throughout the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, I have a vivid memory of standing on a media riser looking at a crowd of endless faces, thinking about all the public safety contingences and possible crises that we had discussed over the past year or more.
And even when we’re not one of thousands in a crowd, we live in a world where anything could go wrong at any time, regardless of the scale of an event. Here at JGPR, we support school districts, which are responsible for the care and safety of thousands of students every day. We support municipal governments that host parades and festivals, bringing together larger communities. Wherever there’s a gathering, there’s potential for a crisis.
Our clients plan for the worst and try to execute for the best, so we need to be fully prepared as well.
So, I enrolled, thinking at worst I’d end up overprepared, given the volume of crises we manage at JGPR on a weekly basis. And yet I was pleasantly surprised by all the course would teach me!
Over two days, we were challenged to break down the question, “How can we prepare for an emergency?” by discussing all of the elements necessary to form a protective action plan, which outlines the main goals of anticipating, facilitating, coordinating, and organizing actions in an emergency. We dug into the psychology of crowds, the importance of knowing the demographics of your event and its attendees, strategies for executing an evacuation, pre-event communication, and the importance of training.
Where are all of the people at the time of the emergency? Are they in the stadium, are they in the concourses, or outside the entry area? Are they in the parking lots? If they’re in the parking lots, are you responsible for evacuating them?
How are you controlling the chaos when the crowd runs during an emergency? If police, fire, and security are responding to the emergency, who is guiding the crowd? If event staff is guiding the crowds, who is telling them what they need to be doing? Do they have the training and equipment to be able to assist the crowd?
That’s a small piece of the larger puzzle when it comes to protective action plans, and we dug in to it all over our two-day course. My key takeaway: these questions are far less anxiety-inducing the more that you plan. With a protective action plan that details who is responsible for what during every possible emergency (severe weather, fires, active shooter, etc.) the process is a lot simpler.
In a meta way, this training was part of my own, and JGPR’s, process of forming protective action plans. In the course, we spent an entire module discussing the importance of training. With this course under my belt, I am prepared to share the concepts of the course with the team at JGPR and ensure that we are asking all the right questions to be adequately prepared for emergencies.
The JGPR team has spent countless hours on emergency preparedness, both as part of our day-to-day training and ahead of large-scale events. But at JGPR, we are committed to expanding on our experience through trainings and professional development so that we can provide the highest quality of service to our clients.
I am so fortunate to have been able to take this course. Both Rick and Susan were excellent instructors who led with experience and adapted the class to make the training relevant to our needs. On top of their leadership, I learned from my classmates, who were seasoned professionals representing organizations such as Boston Police, Boston Athletic Association, MEMA, and American Red Cross. Their candid contributions about their successes, failures, and experiences helped to round out my experience in the class, creating a complete scope of what a protective action plan should look like.