From swimming lakes to river patrols, we can provide your festival with a highly skilled and experienced team of festival lifeguards.
Throughout the festival season we provide crews of up to 30 lifeguards and boat handlers to events around the UK and Ireland. With festivals such as Reading, Latitude and Electric Picnic under our belt we are used to operating at large scale events, working closely with large organisations and liaising with other event emergency services. We can work with you not only during the event but also in the initial planning stages through to post event debrief.
NEW FESTIVALS OR ACTIVITIES HAPPENING AROUND THE WATER?
If you have open water incorporated into your festival site and are not sure if you require lifeguards or the level of cover you require get in touch and we can arrange a site visit where a member of our team will assist you in putting together a risk assessment of the activities in, on or around that body of water.
Recruitment for Festival Lifeguards opens in January each year. If you would like to be considered to join our team click here.
Case Study – Electric Picnic Festival
With the success of lake swimming at festivals in the UK, the festival organisers wanted to open the lake at Electric Picnic to festival goers for use as a bathing area. The lake is situated on private property within the festival grounds and was open all year round for fishing activities. It had never been used for swimming activities prior to this.
Phase 1 – Analysis of lake
We arranged for a member of our team to scan the lake using sonar and swim test it. This gave us an idea of the topography and depth of the different sections of the lake and from there we could pinpoint the best section to be used as a bathing area.
Phase 2 – Risk Assessment and health and safety support
A full risk assessment of the lake and the suggested activities was undertaken by us and presented to the festival organisers with suggested lifeguard numbers, maximum bathing loads, entry and exit points etc…. this all assisted in composing a swim safety plan
Phase 3 – Recruitment
In order to run the bathing area safely and for the hours agreed we required 15 lifeguards, 2 supervisors, 2 duty officers and 1 operations manager. We held interviews with over 20 lifeguards from beaches and swimming pools around Ireland. The supervisory and managerial roles were taken on by our experienced lifeguard managers from our head office here in the UK.
Phase 4 – Implementation
Our team from the UK arrived 2 days before the start of the festival and marked out the 50m x 30m bathing area with lane ropes and buoys and worked with the festival organisers to ensure all other infrastructure, including entry/exit pontoon was in place and secure. Our equipment was set up including a 4m Rigid Inflatable Boat, 4 rescue boards, throw bags etc…
The following day our lifeguards arrived from various regions of Ireland and we held a 2.5-hour training session which including team building exercises, acclimatisation and familiarisation, emergency evacuation procedures and operating procedures.
Bathing times were from 1400 -1800 on the Friday and 0900 – 1800 on the Saturday and Sunday. Outside of these times we had 2 lifeguards positioned on watch from the festival opening to close on the Monday morning i.e. 24-hour cover.
Phase 5 – Review
Post event we submitted a report of the bather numbers on each day, any near misses and rescues and gave feedback on how things could be improved for future years. We have been providing water safety at Electric Picnic now since 2016.
