Fuentes notariales

Event planners and venue managers must always take measures to ensure the safety of all those attending their events. This includes having a proper response and emergency services throughout the duration of their events (the specific theme of emergency services is explained in the later part of this chapter). Hence, this section in relation to health issues will lead us towards several sub-themes related to sickness and other physical injuries to audiences and participants of events.

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The researcher found numerous occasions when respondents narrated their experiences in dealing with crowds and event participants who have different kinds of health problems, the most common ones were related to heart attack and hypertension. Severity varied from a relatively minor case of heart attack to major ones that involved fatalities. Among reported were five cases involving heart attack in which three resulted in fatalities, with a de-hydration case described below.

“…. For example, there is a participant of “Chloraton” [meaning: name of an event] last year if I have not mistaken in Malacca [meaning: name of a state], suddenly fainted because of de-hydration, so it was beyond our control actually.”

The next informant, which is a senior manager in an event venue company supported this view by laying out his own previous case in which their event venue team had to quickly implement an emergency response procedure in order to save an audience’s life. But he was quite lucky in the sense that the event organiser had already arranged for a medical doctor to attend to such problems.

“It’s only about a guest who has…not to say heart attack, is more (or) less like… yeah, it’s like a minor heart attack. […] In the event itself… So, that had happened when the guest was giving his speech, so he actually stopped and collapsed, but then at that time the event organiser had their own medical doctor because it involved a medical…”

The above case illustrated how an individual’s life can be spared if event planners and venue managers exercised proper risk and safety measures in relation to crowd control and crowd safety. But life was not too lucky for some other respondents who had to face fatality issues previously.

“So, of course we also had people dying along the way, you know…there was one chap on our car had a heart attack. He died in the vehicle with the wife. Of course these are things beyond our control....”

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“One of the participants… one of the participants maybe due to sickness, we do not know that he has an asthma or whatsoever, what about that…sickness background of the participant I don’t know. So, he passed away on the way back home, during at the venue.”

“On the way to the buses… their school buses, this particular school boy suddenly died!

And the worst part, he died was not actually our fault, we thought he was maybe… I don’t know, he was only in Form Two [about 14 years of age]. His heart stops pumping out of a sudden!”

There were some informants that reported events’ activities which caused minor physical injuries. They were actually involved in handling motivational camps and team buildings that required them to organise challenging activities such as jungle trekking and water activities for their participants. Two respondents narrated a case in which participants has been involved in minor physical injuries, although measures have been taken to rectify those problems.

“But these accidents are very minor whereby one of the participants actually had a small accident while playing water polo, water polo is part of the program. His eyes was hurt, but it was quite serious.”

“OK, safety risk in handling motivation for example, we had an experience when we conducted an adventure program, but there was a youth who taken part didn’t inform us of that he actually got some health problems… […] So, he had a previous back injury problem but didn’t notify about it in the questionnaire, so when we did the tough activity… Pap! Halfway he collapsed! Huh, that’s it….to handle that really make us sweats, and tedious as well…”

The final theme that I am going to reveal was only mentioned by one participant from this research study but this particular respondent had taken quite a lengthy time in discussing this. The risk mentioned maybe was not generic to the risk and safety typology for

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event management industry but it still has some relevance to the aspect of crowd safety.

According to the respondent, the risk of ‘hysteria’ was quite common among female teenagers who engaged in spiritual activities such as in motivational team-building that were carried out mostly in the rural areas. Hysteria can be described as unmanageable emotional excesses in which people (normally female) who are ‘hysterical’ often lose self-control due to an overwhelming fear that may be caused by previous events (Wikipedia, 2013).

“….. Number three is hysteria, often happened to female participants. […] Happened only to female students…. But hysteria played a very significant role in terms of safety because when someone got hysterical it will normally escalated into other students and affected other students’ emotions as well…. […] …we let this matter been handled by our “Ustaz” [meaning: a religious scholar]”

“Hysteria sometimes happen maybe because of ‘external disturbances’ [unseen].

Because for example, the women when they are in the menstruation state they are mostly vulnerable to spiritual disturbances and emotional stress. When we are at remote areas such as the jungle they tend to imagine weird and ghostly things whereas those things were maybe not even been there. There were maybe sounds of bat but she will imagine such like ‘something’ was following her and then started to scream. When she started screaming then the ‘real thing’ [meaning: spirits or ghosts] will enter her body…”

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Figure 5.3: Thematic network typology for Crowd Safety and Crowd Control

189 5.2.2 Alcohol related Risks

The emergent of alcohol related risk was actually related to crowd safety in view of Kemp et al. (2007) and Connell (2009) who identified that alcohol and drugs were perceived as a major factor in determining crowd behavior in the event management industry. As has been mentioned (in chapter 4 – refer to the pilot study initial findings), it was not anticipated in the preliminary stage that alcohol related risk would become an important issue in Malaysia as the country was mainly Muslim majority and prohibits the consumption of alcohol among its predominantly Malay Muslim community. According to 2010 census figures, 61.3 percent of the population in Malaysia practice Islam (US Department of State, 2011). Sharia law, whose regulations applied to the Muslim community prohibited open consumption of alcohol in public places, especially by the Muslims (Ismail, 2008). Although the non-Muslim is not subject to such a law they too cannot consume it in open spaces due to the fact that Islam is the official religion for the country.

Before this discussion continues, it is imperative that we take a look at the geography and demographic population of Malaysia. Malaysia actually constituted of two geographical parts which is known as Peninsular Malaysia (West Malaysia) and East Malaysia which comprises the states of Sabah and Sarawak (refer Figure 1.1 in chapter one). Malaysia is a multi-racial country with more than 70 identified ethnic groups, however, these ethnic groups were broadly classified into just four major groups namely the Bumiputera, Chinese, Indians and other races (Mahari et al., 2011). The Bumiputera (Indigineous) are divided into two categories which are the Malays and other indigeneous. It was the Malays who make up the majority of the Malaysian population at 50.4% with other Bumiputera (the Indigeneous) making up 11% from the total population (refer Figure 5.4). The Malays which are mostly Muslims occupied the Peninsular Malaysia (West Malaysia) whereas the East Malaysia of Sabah and Sarawak was predominantly occupied by the Christian majority population. For all these reasons, the implementation of Sharia Law which has been designated to only Muslims population was rather loose in the Malaysia East (Sabah and Sarawak), including the consumption of alcohol at public

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places such as events, concerts, festivals and other fiesta. Two of the following respondents illustrated that alcohol related risk of intoxication among the event crowds can hamper the peaceful operation of an event particularly in these two states (Sabah and Sarawak).

“…. They were actually event spectators and they became intoxicated so the Police and Rela [Volunteers of Malaysian people] would take certain actions on them… […] They consumed alcohols and got intoxicated… and then tried to cause disturbances at the event, so the Police were normally have to take a very fast action.”

“….Labuan is actually a duty free port and a multi-racial city, more multi-racial compared to the Peninsular Malaysia. So, not to say that it’s legal but the public just don’t really care if you want to drink or consume alcohols even in open spaces. So they will drink and drink and drink… until they got intoxicated, then they started making troubles. It is OK if they create havocs among themselves, but the problem is when they started disturbing other crowds besides and around them and so forth, that was when we were called into action. That was among the risky thing that we have to face…”

In many cases, it was the small intoxicated minority in a crowd who were irresponsible and caused troubles for planners and venue managers. The situations described above was similar to Fried’s (2009, p.75) statement that “inebriated fans may not only create safety concern for themselves, but their disruptive actions may also endanger others around them and create a crowd management nightmare.” The second respondent mentioned a similar case in Labuan, which is a small island located in the state of Sabah. Labuan has been given the status of a duty-free port for the last two decades. Hence, the price of goods including alcohol was comparatively cheaper than any other parts of the country. Malaysia has levied quite a high excise tax or import duty for tobacco and alcohol for some years now. But with the duty free status enjoyed by the city of Labuan, coupled with the predominantly Christian population, it was predictable that alcohol would be sold openly and cheaply all over the island, especially during events and festivals. Fried (2009, p.62) emphasised that “one of the biggest concerns

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with selling alcohol is the impact intoxicated fans have on crowds”, particularly those sitting around intoxicated fans as been illustrated above. The selling of alcohols’ beverages at events could be largely influenced by financial reason as alcohol sales would “generate significant revenue and can make fans happy” as they want to enjoy alcohol while enjoying their events (Fried, 2009, p.67; Steinbach, 2004). But “the failure to control alcohol can generate significant liability” (Fried, 2009, p.71). According to the author, liability is predicted on the fact that the host should have known or that it was foreseeable that some who was drinking would cause injury to others. However, if the venue management has taken certain procedures or steps to reduce such concern, their potential liability can be greatly diminished (Ammon and Fried, 1998). So, the best is to ensure that the venue managements and its concessionaire do not promote a culture of intoxication by allowing alcohols to be sold in the area of event vicinity.

Figure 5.4: Malaysian demographic population

There was a need for event and venue managers to be concerned about alcohol sales at events due to the potential for inappropriate conduct by intoxicated individuals, ranging from swearing to fighting under the influence of alcohol (Fried, 2009). But according to the following informant and supported by Fried (2009), intoxicated behavior can occur even before the crowd enters the venue, which can impact crowd management procedures. It was normal

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that the crowd would eat, drink and socialise before an event and they would often drink before an event and would be already intoxicated before they arrived there (ibid, 2009).

“Bear in mind that’s why safety when the public attended the events, you cannot control the public, right? They came in the state of intoxicated, stoned, you can control or not?

You can’t (control), so who will control then? The Police. If they’re drunk and then they disturb people, and then committed vandalism, and then assaults, fighting among each other until becoming… that can lead to riots, raids and so on, and then someone might got raped, we never know the public…”

The literature confirms that the risk of alcohol was predominantly its influence in relation to the crowd control and crowd safety (Abbott and Geddie, 2001; Connell, 2009; Fried, 2009). An informant has given an astounding remark about the seriousness of alcohol related issues in the event management industry in Malaysia. Shocking statements such as how alcohol risk led to safety incidents with severe consequences such as suicide, self-inflicting harm with sharp objects, assaults and so on, such as described below.

“There are incidents, some incidents like… incidents such as… such as drunk, drunk, drunk! The situation was like…got drunken, and they were like fainted, or in the state of unconscious, or sometimes they started fighting with each other [because of intoxication], they got injured and intentionally hurt themselves with sharp objects, or they tried to commit suicide or did something that can harm themselves, that was…beyond our control.”

When I firstly encountered the above responses, I was quite surprised as I did not totally expect that the matter would be serious. However, there was some relief later on when I pursued the matter further and investigated whether this respondent spoke out the reality from his own experiences. It turned out that he himself never experienced such a fatal scenario related to alcohol safety risks and it was fortunate enough that the given statements were only based on a

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hearsay. Thus, the reflexivity approach taken in data analysis has been exercised here. As a researcher who is very well-versed with the country, I would prefer to share a stance with another informant who downplays the issue by saying that although alcohol risk was still an important issue, the situation was not that bad and was still under control.

“…. (crowd) safety in Malaysia is not as bad as….. hmmm.. drunk actually, drunken…

[…] …Ha, crowd getting drunken, crowd intoxicated… and then, they will disturb especially the female fans, and maybe sometimes can lead to some assaults, but only all these kinds of things actually….not so bad actually…”

Thus, the crowd safety situation in Malaysia with regard to alcohol related risks was comparatively not too bad. Unlike the US and some other Western countries, events and festivals in Malaysia do not foster a culture of drinking, and that includes the event venues as well. Ammon and Fried (1998) conducted a survey among events and facility managers in the US and reported that alcohol related issues were the number one underlying cause for arrest by the police while alcohol abuse by unruly fans was the number one threat to fan safety at their major sporting events. Although the risk of alcohol consumption was not a frequent concern in Malaysia, event planners and venue operators still need to implement appropriate alcohol management solutions (Fried, 2009), and based on a Malaysian context, it will depend on the types and locations of the events been held. However, the study did find that the risk from intoxication such as crowd rioting and throwing of drinks were similar to the themes found by a survey in the United States (“Unprecedented Survey”, 2004, cited in Fried, 2009).

The previously discussed information has identified a considerable need for venue operators as well as event planners, to protect the crowd from the risks associated with the sales and consumption of alcohol, particularly at sporting and entertainment events in Malaysia. It seemed crucial that event planners and venue operators in Malaysia provided a specific procedure for dealing with intoxicated crowds attending any events. They have to work together with the authorities in attempting to control and monitor crowd activities especially those related

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to alcohol consumption. But according to Fried (2009), this would best be implemented if efforts taken were supported by the law enforcement agencies and other groups in order to reduce intoxication incidents across all events and venues located in Malaysia. The finding of this study has nonetheless encouraged event planners and event venue managers to recognise that the consumption of alcohol can create significant crowd related concerns.

Figure 5.5: Network typology for Alcohol-related risk