SUPREME FOCUS

Supreme moves

Neapolitan Music’s Love Supreme increased capacity from 20,000 to 25,000, resulting in an expansion of the festival site

Love Supreme festival has grown in stature since it bounced onto the festival market in 2013. It has a loyal following; a discerning and returning audience of “real music fans” that value quality and have a certain level of expectation in terms of production.

That’s why Mandy Johnson, U-Live’s head of operations, and Love Supreme’s head of production, has spent hours cherry picking kit that will work with the festival’s branding and colour palette. She is trying to raise the bar and come back with a bang, following the festival’s two-year hiatus.

Johnson is talking to StandOut just days before gates open on the three-day jazz, funk, and soul festival. She’s “in the thick of it”. It’s raining but she is hard at work, perfecting the new site, which has an increased footprint (35 per cent larger) to accommodate an extra 5,000 guests and a huge glamping requirement.

“Love Supreme is an intimate show,” Johnson says. “People like it. We attract experienced festivalgoers. Some other festivals sell themselves on the idea of exploration and that’s part of the festival experience and is critical to those kinds of events. Our customers like the intimacy and accessibility of the site and that’s been a huge success factor for us.”

Johnson has had to bear this in mind as the festival site has been developed to accommodate the increase in capacity. Love Supreme – owned by Neapolitan Music – has had to consider this point as it has grown.

“We’ve done a land grab,” Johnson continues. “The shape of the arena is the same but if you look at the GPS points, the stages and bars are not exactly in the same place but to our customers, it will feel familiar.”

ACHIEVING A BALANCE

Love Supreme 2022 benefits from a second Supremium glamping area – South Supremium now complements North Supremium. It houses 500 extra glamping tents, and the new area has direct access to Love Supreme’s main arena and South Downs stage.

“I’m excited to see this work,” explains Johnson. “It’s been good to see demand for glamping go up so that we can introduce it. Plus, we’ve also been able to introduce more early morning wellbeing content. Before, we had yoga but now we have more of a programme.”

Johnson is mindful of the balance that Love Supreme must strike. It’s a camping festival that also sells lots of day tickets. However, what a camping customer and a day ticket customer want are different. Day ticket holders want buzz and to discover the entire festival in one day. Campers want space to breathe and have three days to explore the site. Therefore, important considerations have had to be given to the increased footprint and where key content is positioned.

“Caburn Meadow is new for 2022,” Johnson continues. “It’s an area where campers can go for a walk and look at the amazing view that we have on the South Downs, especially for campers that might have had a late night and want to relax.

“Also, we have created a quiet campsite and placed it in a new field but to do that we have had to do some extensive groundworks to create two new access tracks; we put in some hard core and a load bearing culvert and we’ve used these tracks for the build.”

PRODUCTION VS CREATIVITY

Johnson is joined on-site by Heather McMillan, site manager, Charlotte Hammand, site coordinator, Emily Muirhead, technical production manager, Lizzie Lock, creative producer, and MC Hunter, event manager. The all-female operations team is working hard to deliver the festival, which has seen production costs increase by 40 per cent. Instead of finding cheaper deals, the Love Supreme team has accepted the increased costs. No one requires the added pressure of finding new suppliers when there’s the added pressure of a redesigned and larger site.

“We have given a lot of thought to the foundations of our festival, the things that make things easier for people; plenty of furniture to sit on, loos that are wellserviced, we have a strong food and retail offer, and good bar metreage,” Johnson concludes. “There must be attention to detail so that our customers can focus on the joy of being here. We’re very much a music festival and that’s why Love Supreme is well produced rather than overly creative and I can’t wait to see how guests react to the new changes.”

SUPPLIERS LIST

Staging and temporary structures –

Dynamic Stretch Tents, Brighton Marquees, Acorn Structures, and A&J Big Top Power – Project Power Radios – NRB Noise control – Electric Star Wi-Fi – Noba Water – MTD Trackway and fencing – Davis Trackhire, Entertee, Sunbelt Rentals and EPS Waste – Greenbox Traffic management – CTM Health and safety – Complivent Furniture – Furniture Hire UK and Eco Furniture Hire Fire – Event Fire Services Toilets – Site Equip Portable buildings – Wernick Events Buggies – OBH Security – PES Bars – One Circle Crew – Delta Crew and Rock City

Providing pain relief

Events professionals talk event medical cover best practice

Every year, Bournemouth 7s festival attracts 30,000 people and 400 sports teams to the south coast for a heady blend of sport and music. The festival is a mecca for rugby, netball, hockey, and dodgeball teams who travel to Chapel Gate for three days of sport and entertainment.

“The medical injuries sustained at Bournemouth 7s are predominantly sportrelated but are sometimes quite severe simply due to the nature of contact sport and the eagerness of athletes to compete,” explained Paul Ashurst, event director of Bournemouth 7s. “Following the 2019 festival, we decided to go to market and do a full review of our medical provision. This was due to experiencing a couple of uneasy communications within our ELT meets from our previous provider, but mainly our desire to ensure that we provide the best our industry can offer and the finest medical care to our customers.”

Bournemouth 7s appointed Enhanced Care Services, directed by Edward Langford, for the 2021 event. Ashurst continued: “ECS highlighted that there was room for clinical improvements with a combined vision and drive. We worked together to essentially build a small hospital on site, with the shared objective to be able to deal with any major medical incident if required and reduce the impact on South Western Ambulance Service and local NHS services.

“I think it’s also fair to say that having 2021 as the first year working together could have been overwhelming, but Ed and his team embraced the challenge and made it seem effortless. We all know how tough delivering events was last year, however coming in as a new supplier and delivering on all expectations is seriously impressive and why we were quick to partner with them for 2022.”

REDUCING PRESSURE

For 2022, Enhanced Care Services introduced a new system to B7s that had the ability to book patients directly into relevant treatment pathways directly from the Bournemouth 7s event site.

Langford, managing director of Enhanced Care Services, explained: “On all large event sites, we install a remote clinical advice line. It’s for all our first responders, paramedics, and clinicians to ring and get advice whilst they are on-site. For example, they could ring and say: ‘We have X patient, do you want us to take them to hospital or come back to the medical centre for a splint and extra care?”

This year, Enhanced Care Services went one step further with medical care provision. Clinical staff had the option to book slots at urgent treatment centres and request x-rays/imaging. For example, if an attendee was injured on the pitch and had a suspected fractured/broken ankle, Langford or a member of his team could book an appointment at the hospital. The patient could be given pain relief and crutches, for instance, and could then get a taxi to the hospital in time for their appointment. Hospital appointments were made available to Enhanced Care Services, which had direct access to University Hospital Dorset’s system. Langdord said:“It meant we sent fewer people to the hospital and weren’t sending additional people to A&E, who would have to sit and wait until they could be seen. It meant there were no extra queues at the hospital and the patient could continue to enjoy the festival before going to their appointment.”

Ashurst continued: “The clinical level of cover that has been provided at Bournemouth 7s has been described by members of our core safety team as being better resourced than local A&E departments. As an organiser, it’s an amazing feeling having complete trust and being able to call upon professional guidance from experts that are truly passionate about providing the highest level of care.”

CHALLENGES

Enhanced Care Services’ system significantly reduced the festival’s impact on local NHS services, which remains under considerable pressure as COVID cases continue to rise.

Dave Hawkins, CEO of MET Medical, told StandOut that the company is experiencing high demand for its services and there’s an increase in last minute requests, as some providers have over committed and event organisers are desperately trying to find cover for their event to go ahead.

Hawkins said: “The pandemic has certainly changed the way we think about the risks of contamination and infectious diseases. Whilst we are learning to ‘live with COVID’, we are going to have further outbreaks and variants. We have taken the strategy to maintain the same controls at events that would be taken in hospital, and we have worked with our clients to consider all infectious diseases as part of a wider public health policy rather than just focussing on COVID. This has been brought to light recently with cases of monkeypox at an event.”

The Government has recently issued monkeypox guidance relating to the planning of events and mass gatherings. This follows World Health Organisation and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control information given to public health authorities for use during summer events. It’s yet another pressure on the NHS.

Hawkins commented: “Everyone is talking about challenges the NHS is facing in terms of increased pressures. The NHS Ambulance Service is under extreme pressure, meaning the likelihood of someone getting an ambulance in a reasonable amount of time, particularly where the individual is already being cared for is very low.

“We have encouraged our customers to be proactive about this and our threshold to provide an ambulance conveying to hospital has shrunk. This has led to events which would only have had one paramedic present, for example, now needing two so that one can remain if a patient is conveyed.

“The other key factor which indirectly affects the medical provision is the long handover delays being experienced at hospitals. When an ambulance takes a patient to A&E, they cannot leave until the patient’s care has been handed over to the hospital and if there aren’t any beds, that means the ambulance crew must stay and look after the patient in the corridor or back of the ambulance. This might mean that where an event has one ambulance on standby to hospital and one or two patients conveyed a day, an additional ambulance would be justified as it is more than likely if the ambulance leaves, then the crew might not make it back before the end of their shifts.

“By working closely with larger clients to ensure their large events or sporting events have considered these factors, we are finding the availability of access to care can end up being even better on an event than it is in the community.”

PLAN AHEAD

In October 2019, British Red Cross announced that it would no longer be providing medical cover at events. This has led other charitable organisations becoming overwhelmed. Furthermore, some first aid only providers, which are not regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) are no longer trading due to the impact COVID had on their businesses. Currently, the delivery of medical provision at an event falls outside of regulation in the eyes of CQC. The only element which requires the provider to be regulated is the transport of patients to hospital. Some unregulated providers are still operating and can provide medical cover. However, they will either outsource the element of transport to a regulated provider or they will put ambulances at the event. It is only when a patient needs to go to hospital that they disclose to the event manager that they cannot convey beyond the gate. In a recent statement, the chief executive of the CQC remarked that he does intend for the events sector to become regulated, but no time indication was given.

In the meantime, Hawkins urged organisers to heed the following advice: “Plan ahead. Lots of event organisers are leaving medical provision to the last minute and in the current market as well as a general shortage of healthcare professionals, you should be looking at planning at least 12 months ahead.”

MET MEDICAL

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