How to Prepare for an Event Crisis: An Essential Q&A for Event Pros 

After our recent webinar, What to Do When Things Go Wrong: Crisis Management, Security, & Risk Mitigation Insights from Disaster Experts, panelist Juliette Kayyem addressed the top questions raised by participants. From communication strategies and registration best practices to working with hotels and public safety officials, her expert answers provide actionable insights to help you navigate emergencies with confidence. 

Question 1: What is the best way to relay emergency updates to event attendees? Text, email, call, event app? 

The simple answer: it’s a combination. Essentially, you don’t want what we call a “single point of failure.” If you rely too heavily on one mechanism of communication and that one falters, you will find yourself in need.  
 
The best kind of emergency alerts notify that there is a disruption, give context on where it is and what’s happening, and then clarify what the person should do–run, stay in place, etc. That ensures you communicate in the most effective way possible, covering as many people as possible. 

Question 2: What are some of the questions or best practices that can be incorporated in event registration forms to ensure that communication systems are in place? 

The registration process is one of the only opportunities to have knowledge and transparency about what your pool of participants is like—age, background, and disabilities are all relevant information for how people may react in an emergency and how you’re able to communicate with them. 

The law requires entities to address accessibility issues, but those are irrelevant if people don’t know what they are supposed to do. You need to think about what kind of information you’re asking for, what kind of information would you want in the event of an emergency, and how you are able to relate important information in that process. 
 
Use the registration process to find out more than whether attendees have dietary restrictions. People can always choose not to answer, but often people will be forthcoming with the information you would want to know. 

Question 3: What are the tips for communicating with the media when the crisis occurs? 

First, remember that you are not the public safety entity, so you don’t want to get ahead of them, and you don’t want to get too far behind them. You want to make sure that your information and what you’re disclosing are consistent, even if it’s just something like “we are aware of X happening at our events, and we are working closely with public safety agencies. We urge you to follow X police department or Y fire department.” You want to show that you are aware of the crisis, but that you may not actually own it, especially if it’s a crisis that involves public safety, fire, or emergency management. 
 
Second, you want to show empathy and knowledge. It’s no one else’s fault in the moment of the crisis. It is not a time to put blame on others. It is a time to show that you have concerns greater than just the company’s concerns, and that you understand the gravity of the situation. 
 
Third, if the crisis involves a corporate reputational crisis rather than a public safety crisis, don’t go silent. There are likely to be tensions between crisis planners, event planners, and lawyers when the crisis arises. Lawyers are going to be thinking about this in a different way than you may be. You should be aware and cognizant of their concerns, but often, they are just recommendations. Make sure that you have a presence, and that you have an action plan when you speak to the media. 
 
Fourth, there are all sorts of different communication platforms right now, and you want to communicate across all of them—everything from a traditional press release to a press conference to Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. All of them are relevant in the moment of the crisis. 

Question 4: My events are at hotels and range from 100-1K attendees. How can we prepare, avoid, respond to an active crisis? 

As an event planner, the most important thing you can do now is align with both the hotel and the public safety entities in their preparedness planning. If they’re not doing it, demand it. But chances are, given the size of these events and that hotels’ awareness of the need, they have some sort of planning.  

You can ask for an understanding of their preparation capacity, their response capacity, and their prevention capacity. You can set the rules for your event. 
 
You need to work with the hotel and the public safety agencies to make sure that you have alignment. For example, in the webinar, we discussed open carry policies and the challenges they raise for many entities. Most hotels do not allow it—even in states that do—and you can assert your preferences for the event that you’re holding, and the kind of event that you want to have, at the outset. 

Question 5: What are your tips for communicating via various media platforms?   

My guiding principle is relatively simple: numbers and hope. 
 
Numbers because people want the facts—and they want the correct facts. It may take a while for you to figure them out, but you want to provide what is happening in real time. 
 
And then they want hope. They want empathy. They want an understanding of what you or the public safety entities, the hotel, or other entities involved are doing to make things better. This is not the time to get defensive, to get litigious, to get angry. 
 
You are responsible for bringing people together if a horrible thing happens—you are responsible for keeping it together. 

Question 6: Planners must be prepared for so many scenarios. We cannot carry a five pound ‘what if’ procedure book. How can we condense protocols into a simplified plan? 

I’m not against the five-pound “what if” procedure book, if that’s what you want. It may be that some of you want a more detailed cyber plan and others of you want a more detailed fire plan. However, my work is around all hazards, and the name of my book is The Devil Never Sleeps for that reason—I don’t focus on what the specific threat is. 
 
When I work with an entity and evaluate if they are prepared, I am analyzing four basic buckets: people, places, rules, and tools. 
 
People is “who is doing what when?” 
 
Places is “where are they, either in the chain of command or physically, and do they have access to decision makers?” 
 
Rules are what we talked a lot about in the webinar, for example “what are the rules about open carry, capacity, or nighttime events?” All of those things are relevant. 
 
Tools are “what mechanisms are in place to provide you with the situational awareness, to understand what’s happening in real time, and then communicate it to guests, partners, and of course, the public?” 
 
As an organizer, you want to come at this from the executive position, and demand that you have an understanding of those four categories.