Venues and events
Large crowds, teams that change every event, and the part of Martyn’s Law most venues will not escape.
Venue managers, event operations and security leads
Where the Act was aimed, and where the tier question genuinely bites.
Martyn’s Law exists because of an attack at a venue, and venues and ticketed events are squarely what the enhanced tier and the qualifying-event provisions are aimed at. Unlike education there is no carve-out.
The operational problem is that a venue’s team on the night is largely not its permanent team. Stewards, bar staff, security and contractors change from event to event, so whatever the procedure is, it has to be communicable to people who arrived four hours ago.
What a venue team deals with
The approaches
Where section 6 looks — the premises and their immediate vicinity.
Crowd build-up
Queues outside doors before they open.
Back of house
Get-in, get-out, and contractors with vans.
Temporary staff
Credentialled for one night, revoked the next morning.
Medical emergencies
Finding the nearest first aider in a building with thousands in it.
Lost property and disputes
Which is where most footage requests actually come from.
Qualifying events
800 or more, ticketed, with duties of their own.
Multi-space venues
Where a response should be scoped to one hall.
Evidence afterwards
For the police, the licensing authority and the insurer.
What section 6 will ask for
Once commenced. None of it is in force today.
Monitoring the premises and their vicinity
Which for most venues means coverage of approaches, queues and boundaries rather than more cameras inside.
Movement of individuals
Into, out of and within — back of house, restricted areas, credentialled staff.
Physical safety and security
Door hardware, detection, lighting, designed with the fire strategy.
Security of information
Who can see your camera plan, your layouts and your procedures. The cheapest category to act on.
And what we would not
Cameras on the approaches
Rather than more coverage of the concourse you already see.
Access control on back of house
Credentials for temporary staff that expire by themselves.
Intercom at the goods entrance
Where most unrecorded access happens.
A console the duty manager can actually use
On a phone, during an event, one-handed.
Not a control room you do not need
Plenty of venues are sold one. Most need a browser and a phone.
Not a promise about crowds
No camera manages a crowd. People do, and the system tells them sooner.
The 800 threshold is about the event, not the building
A parish hall that holds 150 on a Tuesday and 900 for a concert is a different creature on the Saturday. The enhanced duty and the qualifying-events provisions in section 3 turn on the numbers reasonably expected to be present, so the same room can sit in two places depending on the night.
- Count the event, not the address. Work out the reasonable expectation per event and write it down. That working is the thing an inspector will want to see.
- Vicinity is in the wording. Section 6 talks about the premises and their immediate vicinity, which is why the car park and the queue outside are in scope for enhanced premises.
- Temporary does not mean unrecorded. Cameras stay put; access rights are issued for the night and expire on their own.
- None of this is in force yet. The duties have not commenced and the SIA expects spring 2027. Anyone selling you an enhanced-tier obligation today is ahead of the Act.
Questions from people in your position
Are we enhanced tier?
When do we need the section 7 document?
Start with a survey, not a quotation.
We walk the site, look at what you already have, and tell you what would genuinely help — including where the answer is that you do not need anything.
Book a free site survey Call 01727 822 833Tell us about the site
Send us a few details and an engineer — not a call centre — will come back to you within one working day.
This is not a monitoring centre
If you are dealing with an incident now, call 999. This line is monitored during office hours.