Martyn’s Law is expected to come into force in Spring 2027.

John Gregory, Fleet & Asset Manager at ProFM Group sets out how venues and event organisers can make their procedures work from planning through the last guest leaving.

Since it passed through Parliament in 2025, Martyn’s Law has produced plenty of documents around how it’ll work and what’s expected of the venues that will be impacted.

The Home Office published section 27 statutory guidance in April this year while the SIA, which will regulate the industry, followed with it section12 guidance setting our how it will approach regulation of the law.

But all the guidance, procedures for evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication only works if staff enforce them when your venue is full and they know how to stick to the plan as an audience is running for the exit. In this guide we show how each stage of Martyn’s law works and what venues should do at every point.

Agree who makes decisions before an event

Most events have multiple organisers – venue operator, organiser, security staff, stewards, performers and the production company and temporary or agency staff – so when something happens the main thing you need is to be clear on who is actually making the decisions. A good decision by one person can turn to panic quickly inside a venue if someone else makes another decision and confusion starts to grow. The other side is panic can grow even quicker when it looks like no-one is taking responsibility for a procedure and it turns into every man for himself.

Responsibilities need to be confirmed and accepted (with named people responsible for them) so people know who’s doing what on the day. For every step, you should map out who has the authority to make a decision, who has the information needed and how jobs will be delegated once a procedure has started, for example who’ll man doors.

This decision making process needs to be written into your event management plan, with full briefing for all staff on the day, including any temporary or agency staff. This includes clear lines of communication so staff can coordinate effectively no matter where they are.

Combine your crowd and security management

Every procedure that comes from Martyn’s Law effectively comes down to how you can either move a crowd quickly, or hold them in place.

If you’re evacuating 20,000 people from a multi-entrance venue, where are they going to go, and how quickly will each exit route take them and what is going to meet them once they get outside.

On the other side of the argument, keeping guests inside because a threat is outside the building means your staff understand how to lock down areas and stop normal movements without causing a panic.

Which is a risk in itself because how your security responds to an incident can be as big a threat as the immediate danger.

Closing off gates or stopping admissions can push congestion into areas people haven’t properly assessed and when people don’t understand why things are happening you create a more difficult environment for your security team to manage.

Your counter-terrorism and crowd management plan need to planned and signed off by security professionals who understand both sides of it, not just in-house stewards.

Professional security personnel should check every security action for how it will affect crowd flow and how that flow could expose guests to different threats.

Plans should also assume most people will automatically run for the exit they came in through – because it’s what they know. But that could put them in danger, so your security plans should include staff who can quickly, and calmly, show people where they need to go.

Brief security by zones

One thing we’ve seen discussed in the industry around Martyn’s Law is the introduction of training modules that staff can take. But again this doesn’t help when it comes to managing a crowd trying to go the wrong way or what they should do when a planned route gets closed in a fast moving situation.

One answer is to organise briefs by zones, breaking down responsibility for particular areas instead of just “everyone is responsible for everywhere”.

Briefs should cover the specific procedures that apply to that areas, alternative routes when the first plan is cut off, the communication required and what to do if instructions stop.

It’s the supervisors job here to make sure staff understand what they’re responsibilities are and what actions they need to take in each scenario.

Stick to the plan during your event

Things happen during emergency situations that you have to deal with and that throw parts of your plan out the window. In this type of emergency situation, we recommend having a single point of control who logs every change as it happens and is responsible for communicating changes to individual zones.

The most dangerous risk here is too many people trying to communicate over each other at once and no-one having a proper understanding of what’s really happening.

Again, keeping communications clear here between supervisors and on the ground staff is essential so you know everyone understands when things change and what they should as a result.

Staffing your exits at the end of your event

For operators the final half an hour or so of an event should have its own staffing plan instead of being treated as the event winding down.

Staff should stay in position until the audience has cleared all the space between your venue and their transport home.

Areas should be covered by a combination of manned guarding and CCTV, with ownership for decision confirmed between security services, landlords, transport operators and the police.

Post event is where crowd densities are highest, but also when most people are outside the initial security perimeter.

Part of this plan should include how to quickly get a moving crowd back into your venue is necessary.

Push your plan to failure

Each event should finish with a full debrief, which should be a critical look at everything that went wrong, no matter how small, to make improvements in the future.

Any point when a staff member hesitated, anytime a route changed or an instruction didn’t get through should be recorded (no matter how small).

Each of these should be used in future planning, pushing extreme “what if” scenarios – radios failing, evacuation routes closing – to try and break your security plan so you know where the biggest holes are to fix in the future.