There’s No Business Like Show Business! CDM Now Covers the Entertainment Industry

Or rather – headline acts – because as of April 2015, new CDM regulations include the events and entertainment industry too. So what does this actually mean?

Let’s take a gander backstage and find out!

What are the CDM Regulations?

First off – let’s get this one clear. The CDM Regulations stand for the Construction Design and Management regulations. Simple enough, right?

They are there to help make health and safety easier for you – by setting out the rules on what kind of safety measures need to be in place.

Because they put legal duties on the different people involved – it means there’s no room for cutting corners – everyone, from clients to workers and higher level management – have duties that they must do.

So why the change?

The change doesn’t mean that other industries are going to be affected any differently. What it does mean is that businesses working in the events industry will now need to take a more rigorous and thorough approach when it comes to managing risk at events.

The best example of this is one of the biggest events to take place in the UK in recent years – the 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games.

The folks at HSE worked closely with the event coordinators here, and the result? Pretty impressive – from a health and safety perspective, they definitely deserved a few gold medals! Despite having a lot of big builds to complete – everything was finished on target, within budget – and with a sparkling health and safety record to boot.

Told you it was impressive.

What about small events?

Ok. Some people in the events industry have already started to chime in with worries about how these new regulations are going to be breathing down the necks of smaller shows and events.

It is going to be a change. The new regulations mean that there might need to be extra training involved, more education, and more investment in safety procedures and equipment.

But a safer space can only be a good thing, right?

There won’t be an initial transitory period – it’ll be straight into a world of new rules come April! While there have definitely been a lot of concerns raised about the new changes, the reality is, they’re going to be put in place – and businesses will have to figure out how to adapt and meet them.

Of course, construction health and safety experts don’t know much about what’s involved in putting on a great show – so events industry people will be relieved to know that HSE will be asking the industry for input, to find out what issues event construction actually involves.

Want to find out more about how this might affect you? Veritas’ Construction Health and Safety Advisers are on hand to help you get clued up whenever you need – so drop us a line or give us a shout!

Now it’s your turn

Have your say in the comments section below.

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