SAFETY AND SECURITY CONCERNS ARE CHANGING THE FACE OF SPORTING EVENTS How the Flying Pig Marathon Kept Participants Safe without Instilling Fear
By Jackie Reau, Game Day Communications
We’ve all gone through it: Everything is in place for your event when, at the last minute, some issue causes major changes. It could be a shortage of t-shirts, not enough medals, even the threat of bad weather. But when it’s an international bombing incident, it forces changes not just to your event, but every event that comes after. That’s what happened to dozens of road races in the aftermath of the April 15 bombing at the Boston Marathon finish line, including the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon, which was all set to celebrate its 15th anniversary weekend May 3-5. Instead of a celebration, though, the weekend would become one of remembrance for the Boston victims and one of concern for the Pig’s own security plan.
Fire and First Responders in the city of Cincinnati, along with other municipalities in Northern Kentucky and along the route to discuss how to best react to this need for heightened security. “We have been fortunate to have good working relationships with all the communities along the Flying Pig routes,” Simpson-Bush said. “We regularly meet with fire, police and first responders in the weeks leading up to the Marathon. This year, though, the meetings took on special urgency.” In fact, just two days after the Boston bombings, on Wednesday, April 17, Flying Pig Marathon staffers met with more than two dozen emergency officials, including representatives from the City of Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, the cities of Newport and Covington, Kentucky, county officials from Northern Kentucky, along with representatives from the FBI and Homeland Security. All met with one objective in mind: To make the Flying Pig Marathon safe, while not overly alarming participants, volunteers and spectators.
But when it’s an international bombing incident, it forces changes not just to your event, but every event that comes after.
The Flying Pig staff reacted quickly, huddling with its public relations team in minutes after the Boston incident to craft a general statement to the media regarding the bombing. After that, came the duty of developing a comprehensive communications plan and checklist to respond to the incident before Marathon weekend including: Preparation, Partnerships, Planning, and a Proactive Communication plan. The Preparation part was already in place: For more than a decade the Flying Pig Marathon has had a general crisis plan on the books, one that had been put to the test five years before, when a fire on the course Marathon morning forced a detour around the fire and a 10-minute delay in the 6:30 a.m. start. That incident proved that constant communication and transparency, which kept the media and participants informed, kept complaints to a minimum with little or no backlash over the last-minute change. So with the general crisis plan already in place, the Flying Pig used its existing Partnerships to explore how to deal with the added security that would now be expected at any large event, but especially a road race event. To that end, Flying Pig Marathon Executive Director Iris Simpson-Bush used her 10 years of working with Police,
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“When it comes to security, we work for the events—we work for the organizations planning them, and their participants,” said Sgt. Greg Lewton from the special events section of the Cincinnati Police Department. “It is our mission to make sure we make them as safe as possible, without disrupting the enthusiasm and the joy that come from events like the Flying Pig Marathon. In working with Iris and the marathon staff, we were able to find the fine line of increased security, without putting a damper on the event.” From those meetings, came the Planning element of the increased security. While safety measures already were in place for the Marathon, the Flying Pig staff, as well as the first responders, had to look at ways to beef up security. First, each department along the route pledged increased staffing, including more uniformed as well as undercover personnel. Second, the Flying Pig worked with its gear bag provider to, at the last minute, switch from a white plastic gear bag to a clear one. The clear bag would be the only bag allowed at gear check on Marathon morning.