AP Q's Up At The Forum
The annual Q Awards is one of the music industry’s most infamous events, renown for its celebrity shenanigans. This year it was held on 26th October at the Grosvenor House in Park Lane with Q Awards – The Gigs, this year held at north London venue the HMV Forum, providing a six-day run up of top band performances including Kasabian, Biffy Clyro and Lostprophets. With a stellar line up and attendance by a host of famous faces, The Forum needed to know that crowd management would not be an issue. It put full trust in resident crowd safety company, A.P. Security and wasn’t disappointed.
“We’ve been working with the Forum for a couple of years now, so we know how things work, where the pressure points are and how to handle any situations that may arise,” says Wayne Grove, in charge of the venue for A.P. “However, working on an event like this comes with its own particular issues, so we plan carefully to make sure that everything is covered.”
AP’s normal working week covers two or three nights when the Forum hosts gigs. Having six consecutive days to cover, increased crowd capacity, a free VIP bar for the promoters and sponsors, celebrity guests and big name bands means not only extra staff are required, but that they need to be carefully selected.
“All our staff receive the appropriate professional training, but different people have different strengths and it’s important that we recognise that and assign team members to the positions where they work best,” explains Wayne.
“There were some bands performing such as Kasabian that have a very lively following, so we needed to be prepared for that. We had some special requirements including providing extra staff for the backstage area and artist changing rooms, more staff in the pit because there were photographers present and we also helped at the fan’s autograph signing area.
“It all went very well. The venue knew it could have absolute confidence in us because, as well as handling its normal requirements, we’d already successfully covered the Kerrang Awards, held here in August. We’ve had very positive feedback from both the sponsors and the venue itself and we’re already looking forward to next year’s Awards.”
“From our point of view, the week flew by with no problems or issues,” adds Gemma Shamah, Assistant General Business Manager at the HMV Forum. “Every band that was on that bill commended the security on how good they were and we really appreciated all AP’s efforts.”
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