This text is part of the Weather Preparedness & Resilience Toolbox developed by the YOUROPE Event Safety (YES) Group within YOUROPE’s 3F project (Future-Fit Festivals). It is aimed at everyone involved in planning, building, and operating open-air events. It helps festivals and other outdoor events become truly weather-ready by offering both practical and research-based resources as well as background information on weather and climate. Learn how to design safer and more weather-resilient outdoor events.
Tabletop 1 Simultaneous heat and lightning threats
A tabletop for simultaneous heat and lightning should simulate a full festival day where extreme heat slowly escalates and a thunderstorm then forces rapid sheltering decisions.
1. Purpose and participants
- Purpose: Test how the festival team prioritises and sequences actions when heat and lightning risks overlap: cooling vs. sheltering, show stops, crowd movements, and communication.
- Participants: Event director, safety officer, weather liaison, control room, production/stage, security/zone managers, medical/welfare, communications, and key external partners (e.g. meteorological contact, emergency services liaison).
- Materials:
- Site map with zones, routes, shelters, cooling stations, and medical points.
- Weather timeline: forecast, rising temperature/WBGT, and later radar/lightning data.
- Your heat and lightning action plans, including triggers and capacity assumptions.
3. Scenario timeline and key injects
Phase 1 – Morning: heat risk building (T–6 to T–4 hours)
- Inject 1: Heat alert
- Forecast upgraded: maximum temperature 35–37°C, WBGT above local mass‑gathering threshold; national health agency issues heat warning.
- Expected actions:
- Activate heat plan; open core cooling stations and hydration points; brief staff on heat risks and early recognition of heat illness.
- Adjust programme (e.g. move most strenuous acts out of 13:00–17:00 window) and push pre‑event messaging about water, hats, sunscreen.
- What triggers are used to go from “heightened awareness” to “heat plan fully active”?
- How many cooling stations must be open by midday, and where?
Phase 2 – Midday: peak heat and first medical issues
- Inject 2: Heat illnesses and crowd behaviour
- Reports of several guests fainting near main stage, long queues at water points, and shading areas at capacity.
- Expected actions:
- Increase cooling capacity (more shade, misting, water bowsers), redeploy stewards to queues and hottest surfaces, instruct bars on water access.
- Medical escalates posture: adds roaming teams and triage in or near cooling stations.
- Multiple stewards report dizziness after long shifts in sun.
- Expected actions: rotate staff, enforce shaded breaks, and adjust staffing plan.
Phase 3 – Late afternoon: storms develop on a hot day
- Inject 4: Thunderstorm watch
- Meteorological contact warns of developing thunderstorms; radar shows cells 40 km away, moving toward event.
- Expected actions:
- Move from “heat only” posture to “heat + storm watch”: confirm lightning plan, review shelters, and brief zone managers.
- Plan for the possibility that outdoor cooling zones (shade/mist) may soon be unsafe due to lightning.
- At what distance or lead time do you warn the public that storms may affect the programme?
- How will you adapt cooling strategy if outdoor structures become unsafe?
Phase 4 – Early evening: heat still high, lightning approaches
- Inject 5: Lightning within 15 km, then 10 km
- Heat index still high; crowd dense at main stage; lightning detections creep inside your pre‑alert radius but outside full‑action radius.
- Expected actions:
- Alert internal teams: “Lightning pre‑alert – be ready to clear stages and move to shelter at X km trigger.”
- Comms sends a calm public advisory: continue hydrating, but be prepared for possible temporary suspension of activities.
- A headline act is about to start; management is nervous about stopping the show; cooling zones are full.
- Expected actions:
- Safety leads must argue for clear go/no‑go criteria aligned with policy, not commercial pressure.
- Decide whether to delay the act pre‑emptively.
Phase 5 – Storm impact: lightning trigger and shelter/evacuation
- Inject 7: Trigger reached
- Lightning is detected inside your action radius (e.g. 8 km, then 5 km); winds increase; light rain starts.
- Expected actions:
- Implement lightning plan: stop performances, clear stages, and move people from exposed areas to robust shelters or vehicles.
- Close outdoor cooling tents and misting lines; redirect people to indoor or hardened shelters that also function as cooling spaces.
- How do you balance the need for rapid shelter against the risk of overheating in crowded indoor spaces?
- Do you prioritise certain groups (children, older people, medical cases) for best‑cooled shelters?
- One primary shelter is nearly full; another is under‑used due to poor signage; cooling station inside a building loses power.
- Expected actions:
- Reassign flows to less‑used shelter; deploy staff for wayfinding; consider partial use of structurally safe but warmer backup spaces with fans and water.
- Medical triages cases that cannot tolerate heat in more crowded shelters.
Phase 6 – All‑clear and recovery
- Inject 9: Storm passes, temperature drops slightly
- Lightning moves away; last thunder time is logged; 30‑minute all‑clear clock starts.
- Expected actions:
- Keep people sheltered until criteria are met; meanwhile, reassess heat risk level now that conditions have cooled somewhat.
- All‑clear reached; ground wet, some structures need inspection; crowd is restless.
- Expected actions:
- Phased reopening: first essential services and routes, then stages after checks.
- Adjust heat measures for evening (e.g. fewer cooling stations but sustained water and clear information).
4. Roles, decisions, and inject questions
For each phase, have specific role prompts:
- Safety / weather liaison: “Do current data meet our heat or lightning triggers? What level are we at—watch, warning, full action?”
- Control / operations: “Which zones do we prioritise for movement? Which routes and shelters are assigned?”
- Medical: “What is our capacity at cooling stations and medical tents? When do we trigger surge protocols?”
- Communications: “What is our key message now? How do we avoid confusing shifts from ‘seek shade and mist’ to ‘go indoors and avoid tents’?”
5. Evaluation and outputs
- Use a simple scorecard: timing of key decisions, use of agreed triggers, match between actions and written plans, clarity/consistency of messaging, and how conflicts (show vs. safety) were handled.
- End with a structured debrief: identify 3–5 priority changes to heat and lightning SOPs, shelter and cooling layouts, and training needs before the next season.