On the final day of bump-in for an event at a venue with a 50/50 mix of indoor and outdoor space in Brisbane, a severe cyclone warning came through. Queensland Police shut down roads, closed schools, and told everyone to get off the streets and stay out of the weather.
Fair enough, but we still had a show opening the next morning.
For OH&S reasons, we had to shut down all outdoor site work immediately. No question about it. Safety first, always. So here’s what we did:
- Secured and cleared every outdoor area, no exceptions
- Stopped all site traffic – nobody new coming on
- Moved everything possible indoors and kept working there
- Called a deliberate “go slow” – no rushing, no shortcuts, no injuries
Then we came back at 6am, hours earlier than a normal start, finished the outdoor work once conditions cleared, wrapped the indoor bump-in, cleaned the venue, and opened doors just 15 minutes behind schedule.
You can’t control the weather, but what you can control is how prepared your team is to make good decisions when it turns on you.
The shows that handle a crisis well aren’t the ones that never hit one. They’re the ones with a team that already knows how to think clearly under pressure.
Ever had a live event thrown a curveball like this? What got you through it?
Paul Mathers
Paul is a highly experienced commercial event executive with more than 30 years’ experience building, launching and growing successful consumer event brands across Australia, the United States, United Kingdom and Southeast Asia. His career spans business leadership, P&L accountability, strategic partnerships, sponsorship, revenue growth, brand development and team leadership. Paul has led multidisciplinary teams across sales, marketing, operations and event delivery, while developing commercially successful events in the automotive, lifestyle and pet sectors.
His achievements include leading some of Australia’s foremost consumer events, delivering multiple EEAA Award-winning exhibitions and building internationally recognised brands in highly competitive and diverse markets globally. Connect with Paul through LinkedIn HERE
