Author: Dr Michael McDonagh and Charles Swanson
ISBN No: 9781041149392 (paperback)
Review date: 26/09/2026
No of pages: 401
Publisher: Routledge
Year of publication: 01/09/2026
Brief:
price
£51.99 paperback
Most books, let alone books about security management, you read and before the end wish that they were shorter. Perhaps the author doesn’t have control of their material, and includes facts or stories that are interesting enough, but don’t belong in this particular book; or, they aren’t an experienced or disciplined enough writer, and they are long-winded. Event Security and Leadership, by Dr Michael McDonagh and Charles Swanson, is an exception: it has none of these faults; though 400 pages, and at the very end described as ‘a book of such enormity’, I found myself wishing it were longer.
Martyn’s Law
For one thing, the subject as they set it out is so vast. Besides the securing of a venue or open-air site, they give chapters on crisis management; and risk and crisis communication, to name only two that could have books by themselves. Martyn’s Law, to give its proper legal title the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, and indeed the 2017 Manchester Arena suicide bomb and Sir John Saunders’ Inquiry, run like a thread through their book, and could have a book too. For another thing, the authors impress upon the reader how important the subject is, whether you put on or work for an event, or attend one. The very reputation of the UK is bound up with putting on a ‘good show’; whether one-offs like the 2012 Olympics, or regular sport, the Last Night of the Proms, and the Notting Hill Carnival – another subject fit for a book, which the authors give several pages to. They call the Carnival ‘a missed opportunity’ – the country should regard such a mega-event as ‘not simply as a policing challenge, but as a strategic asset’ (page 96). They argue for a ‘national taskforce’ and ‘ring-fenced funding’ for the Carnival, besides ‘formal knowledge sharing mechanisms’ for sharing best practices with other cities that put on festivals (and which city, wise to the financial and reputational gains from putting on a Pride, book, cultural, food or other event, does not?). While the authors have the experience to make such judgements with authority, they wrote the book (as they related to me at its launch at the London offices of Corps Security in mid-September, at an event of course!?) as advice, for those working on an event.
Stages
Hence the last third or so of the book runs through the stages of an event’s ‘journey’, from beforehand (the ticketing) to arrival, the ‘last mile’ – the tricky, liminal ‘grey space’ before spectators come into the footprint of a stadium or concert hall – entry, moving around the venue, leaving and dispersing, when stewards and event managers do a de-brief and learn lessons. As that implies, the process never ends; and has to be documented (how else to prove your competence, let alone to the Martyn’s Law inspectors of the SIA?).
Quibbles
A quibble of mine is that the book is (as the authors fully cover) about the taking of decisions, as the melancholy story of tragedies such as Hillsborough proved. The book’s sub-title is ‘securing global events in an unpredictable world’, and while sub-titles have to stop somewhere, I would rate decision-making as meriting a mention in the sub-title. That said, what the authors have to say about decision-making is sensible and useful. Notably, among the page of ‘what I wish I’d understood about event leadership’, on page 67. A leader may have to ‘make decisions with incomplete intelligence. In event security, you rarely get 100 per cent of the information you want before you have to act.’ If you wait for perfect clarity …. it will be too late. In other words, not taking a decision, or indecision, is a sort of decision. Another wise piece of advice is to ‘have difficult conversations early’ if someone is not pulling their weight; because again, putting off a decision may introduce a risk. Another even slighter quibble of mine is that in parts of the book I am unsure if McDonagh or Swanson are speaking, when they quote from their careers (one of the strengths of the book: you really feel that you are hearing from them). That may not matter to most readers; it only occurs to me having met each man at the book launch, and keen now to discuss the book further.
‘Contract’
Another strength of the book is that the early chapter on ‘the psychological contract of attending an event’. A busy practitioner may skip it to get to the practical parts, yet it’s arguably the most valuable, for getting the reader to think something new, about ‘the profound human dynamics at play’ when people choose to attend an event, whether free or paid for. How else to explain my mother as a 20-year-old with her sister taking the train to London and sleeping on the street, so as to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953? Why else did hundreds of thousands queue in 2022 in Edinburgh and London for the monarch’s lying in state? Events, as the authors spell out, ‘are far more than logistical exercises’ (page 71) and the committed event security and safety professional can, and should, keep in mind that an event is more than a financial transaction, a corralled piece of entertainment.
Evolution
The authors, then, have achieved even more than they say they set out to. Their book may be timely because Martyn’s Law is likely to come into effect in 2027. Yet it can be read for profit by someone in security (or the service sector more generally) whose work is only occasionally around an event, to inform an experience as an attender of an event, which is something shared, deeply, emotionally (and uniquely?) human. The authors at the very end return to this idea of the ‘psychological contract’ of an event. It’s evolving; safety training and culture, indeed the very term ‘crowd science’, have come on greatly since the authors’ first work in this field (in the police and Royal Military Police) in the 1970s and 1980s. One evolution has to be in use of social media and open-source intelligence to anticipate risks such as protest, notably after the example of the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021, ‘but so must our ethical frameworks’, when monitoring public sentiment, the authors add (page 148). Leaders, the authors conclude, ‘must do more than protect’ – indeed, the authors speak also of ‘a moral duty to protect’; ‘leaders must anticipate, communicate, and adapt with clarity and confidence’, to retain the trust of ticket-holders, sponsors, event promoters and the wider public. If this book of 400 pages feels heavy (even a paperback – the hardback may well feel too expensive), that’s because what the authors tell us is weightier still.
About the authors
Dr Mike McDonagh served as Senior Counter Terrorism Protective Security Advisor for the London 2012 Olympics. In 2013 he was awarded a doctorate for his research on counter terrorism legislation, community protection. Charlie Swanson served in the Royal Military Police (RMP), and specialised in close protection, counter terrorism and protective security, and has since become a lecturer and assessor, besides the author of Professional Security Management: A Strategic Guide (2020), and The Security Risk Handbook (2023, both published by Routledge). Both men are Chartered Security Professionals.
