We featured security at a conference run by The Economist in our April 2010 issue, Here’s an update.
Figures of influence in world sport gathered for The Global Sport Summit 2010 in London. The Economist contracted out security. For a second year Integrated Security Consultants (ISC) managed security for the event, at the Grosvenor House hotel. It’s held annually in association with America’s National Football League (NFL), and sees high profile delegates from across sports business. Security is a critical towards the conference’s success.
Attenders in 2010 included representatives of Arsenal Football Club, the International Olympic Committee, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, The Football Association, ITV and the London Marathon.
ISC’s Operation’s Manager, Dean Tindall and ISC’s NFL Operations Manager, Steve Mack, managed the event. Tindall recalls: “An event of this size requires a great deal of planning. Prior to the conference we had many meetings with the event organisers and the NFL. We also organised a number of meetings with the police, the hotel and its in-house security team to establish and communicate exact security requirements.” The security provision on the day included bag searchers on entrances, information and directional staff, corporate security to guard out-of-bounds areas and Close Protection (CP) drivers for the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the San Francisco 49er’s owner and event speaker, Jed York.
Tindall adds: “We had a large team of SIA trained staff securing the event, including additional close protection trained members of staff that we had on standby as a precautionary measure.” Members of the press had free roam of the event, with only a few out-of-bounds areas enforced. “Press are naturally inquisitive so we had to pay particular attention to the client designated out–of-bounds areas to ensure the integrity of these zones. As always, we made every effort to strike the right balance between providing professional, customer focused high level security whilst also ensuring our presence didn’t unnecessarily ‘get in the way’ of the event proceedings.” The conference ended without incidents or security breaches.
