Tourism Australia for their work on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2017 - 2017 National Winner: Best Achievement in Marketing, Communication or Sponsorship

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Neil Fergus

Neil Fergus

Event Design: Balancing Risk, Security and the Customer Experience

Creating a secure, safe event is one of the most important responsibilities of any event producer. However, as important is maximising the customer experience. We want attendees to walk away talking about how engaging our event was and returning each year, and not posting images over social media about being thoroughly patted up and down on entry and feeling like they’re in a fenced in space. This workshop will explore what the key elements of risk and security for events are available, which ones apply and when and how to incorporate these into your planning and staging while also maximising the quality of the experience.

Skills & Outcomes:

  1. Identifying the risk and security needs of your event from personnel to infrastructure
  2. Keeping the Customer Experience front of mind as plans for Risk and Security develop
  3. Developing a Risk Assessment and an Management Plan and keeping it real
  4. Working with consultants and government agencies to maximise the experience for customers

Neil had a senior role in security for the Sydney Olympic Games. He founded Intelligent Risks (IR) in 2001.

IR is an international leader in the fields of risk management; infrastructure protection and delivery of security for major events. It has practices in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the UK.
Since the 2000 Games, Neil has been a security advisor to the 2002 Salt Lake, 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing, 2012 London, 2014 Sochi, 2016 Rio and Tokyo 2020 Games.

IR has also been security advisers for five FIFA World Cups.

Neil has been Security Advisor to the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) since 2005 – for the Melbourne 2006, Delhi 2010, Glasgow 2014, Gold Coast 2018 and Birmingham 2022 Games (and Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune, Isle of Man, Samoa and the Bahamas).

Apart from sports events Neil has advised on security for several political summits including NATO, G8, G20, APEC, ASEAN and CHOGM. IR has provided safety and security support for a range of other niche events, including several charitable events. These include Olivia Newton John’s Great Walk to Beijing, the CEOs trek of Kokoda, Garma Festival’s and Australian Himalayan Foundation treks in Nepal.

Intelligent Risks were the 2018 Winner for Best Event Service, for their work in risk, security and crisis management.