Glastonbury Festival has again showed that safety is its first priority. The first of 1600 certificates for event training have been presented to steward Annette Curtiss and campsite coordinator Dave Speed. Michael Eavis presented their certificates at Worthy Farm, accompanied by crew training coordinator Martin Edwards. Over 400 people have passed the course already and by next year all 2000 members of the steward crew will have been trained to a nationally accredited standard in event safety.
The course includes first aid, crowd management, negotiation skills and fire safety plus specific Glastonbury elements. Martin explains, "We're the first line of defence. The role of the steward has developed from Michael's original idea of a friendly face people can talk to, to someone who now stands out in a bright yellow jacket. Our crews come across anything you'd like to name somewhere on the festival site."
	With this course they have the confidence to deal with many complex situations, knowledge of the correct procedures to follow and information about who is there to back them up when they need help. It's gone from 200 to 2000 stewards in a short time and so this training is essential. Martin says that "We are going to make it a requirement of stewarding at the festival. If you haven't got the certificate, you won't be able to come and steward here." The people who take the course are giving themselves something useful as well as helping the festival. In total each student receives four certificates. Martin feels that as well as gaining the certificates each individual who qualifies - " is going away with life skills that you can take with you beyond Glastonbury Festival." As a nationally recognised certificate you can take it anywhere to show that you have these qualifications, to any festival to do event stewarding or beyond.
The course is delivered by Somerset College, who also train Door Safe, the door person initiative across Avon & Somerset. The tutors come out to where the people are based be it in marquees, at the farm or local schools and the training is on going. Collage worker Dave Hawkins' whose original approach to Jean Eavis led to the development of the course said "I read about this course for Event Stewarding and Crowd Control and decided to approach the festival. I spoke to Jean Eavis who was very interested. Over 2 years the course was gradually evolved, and it's great to be working with our local community." Mr. Tiley the new business development manager of SCAT (Somerset College) explained, "New government money is changing the way education is delivered. We are coming out to the people and learning from industry what people need and Glastonbury Festival is a large employer in this area. People interested in studying the course can visit our website at www.somerset.ac.uk.
Michael Eavis stressed the importance of safety consciousness at the festival, also he said "Partly why we took the year off this year was to reassess our safety situation". One of the strong factors in the cancellation was the disaster that occurred at the Roskilde festival in Denmark a week after Glastonbury 2000 passed without incident. Michael continues "They started a year after I started in 1970 and they started in 1971, and have been developing in a similar pattern really… except we are much more interesting!". Michael is off to Roskilde to see what steps they have taken after their safety review. Roskilde is probably the only other event in Europe on a comparable scale to Glastonbury. Roskilde festival has shown a strong interest in running this same course developed originally by Showsec and using Glastonbury's staff to deliver the training. Annette "You really want to help some of these kids as they look so vulnerable. We have the confidence now to intervene, whereas before we were just advisory. We have been trained to administer first aid, we know the radio network to get assistance. Now we know where we fit in 'that wheel' and we're a tighter spoke. We've got an insight into what goes on if there is a major incident, and although we hope nothing like that happens, the training has given us the insight and confidence to know how to deal with any situation if it did occur."