Adelaide's Big Day Out a Safe Work Award Winner

The 2009 Adelaide Big Day Out has been recognised for its attention to safety, with its organisers taking out the Best Public Event for Safety at the annual Safe Work South Australia Awards.
The 2009 Big Day Out in Adelaide event ran for 12 hours on eight stages and was attended by 34,000 patrons. It was set up in the middle of the State's hottest and longest heatwave and staged on a day when temperatures reached the mid 40s.
South Australia Industrial Relations Minister, Paul Caica said it was a huge credit to the organizers, El Dorado Music, for achieving high standards of safety with such a massive logistical effort on Adelaideâs entertainment calendar.
As Minister Caica explained when announcing the award, "the judges were impressed by El Doradoâs genuine desire and efforts to create a strong safety culture for the event for the workers, volunteers, service providers and contractors and for the thousands of patrons.
âThese efforts range from their extensive consultation with stakeholders, including the Police and Ambulance Service, through to innovative measures to manage risks such as heat stress and crowd control.�?
Local Adelaide Promoter Sacha Sewell says receiving the Safework SA Award for Best Public Event Safety is testament to the amazing people behind the scenes that bring the show together when the circus, that is the world's largest touring festival, rolls into town.
âThe award is recognition of the duty of care to our patrons, the priority of safety, and the lengths that the Big Day Out goes to stage such an astounding festival for our patrons. It's about the music, it's about the art, and itâs about the festival experience.�?
Sewell also thanked and acknowledged Big Day Out patrons for looking after themselves and each other.
Outside of the Big Day Out team, Sewell also acknowledged "the amazing people" from SA Police, Metropolitan Fire Service, St John's, SA Ambulance Service and SES who demonstrated, yet again, that the SA Emergency Services are among the best in the world keeping people safe under the most difficult circumstances.
Similarly the roles played by The Adelaide Showground, all the security and crowd control companies (Weslo, Nineball, Adelaide Security Company, State), our fabulous Crowd Care Volunteers and all the staff on the ground at the Big Day Out cannot go unacknowledged in such brutal and trying conditions.
Minister Caica added that South Australian Government is very pleased to be able to provide a statewide competition for safety performance, in the form of the Safe Work Awards, with benchmarking being a very important means of evaluating an organisation and improving performance.