September 4, 2004, was a memorable day for Paint the Town Red president Howard Givner—and not just because it was his 39th birthday. His staff was overseeing the load-in for an employee appreciation event for a large health care company at Bridgewaters for 1,000 guests, scheduled for a 7 PM start time. At 1:30 that afternoon, the client informed Paint the Town Red staffers that the company had received a call threatening a bomb explosion during the event. (They speculated a recently terminated employee was responsible.) Staffers called the police, and the NYPD sent two officers, who dismissed the threat as not credible and declined to send a bomb squad to the scene. (A spokesman for the NYPD tells us it’s up to the responding officers’ judgment whether to send the squad.) The facility’s staff was satisfied with the NYPD’s recommendation, but Givner felt compelled to take additional security measures.
“The police deal with this stuff all the time, but when you actually get a phone call that says, ‘I’m going to blow up the party tonight and everyone’s going to die,’ it’s bone-chilling,” Givner recalls. “We reacted immediately with a plan, while [the police] were laissez-faire about it.”
Here’s where it helps to have friends in the business: Calling on a security company with which his firm has worked for years, Givner arranged for a bomb-sniffing dog to sweep the area. He also doubled the number of security officers assigned to the event, arranged for two metal-detecting wands to check all guests, and extended the registration area by 15 feet to keep potential problems farther outside the facility—all in the few hours before the doors opened.
“There were additional costs of about $2,500, which the client was happy to pay,” Givner says. “If they didn’t want to pay for it, I would have pulled my staff from the venue; there’s a point at which my team’s safety overrides a client’s event. Fortunately, in this case, we were all on the same page.”
So what happened? The event went off without incident. “I wasn’t nervous after all the things we did, and I felt confident we had a secure facility—no one was getting in there.”
—Alesandra Dubin
Posted 06.20.05
This story originally appeared in the June/July 2005 issue of the BiZBash Event Style Reporter.
“The police deal with this stuff all the time, but when you actually get a phone call that says, ‘I’m going to blow up the party tonight and everyone’s going to die,’ it’s bone-chilling,” Givner recalls. “We reacted immediately with a plan, while [the police] were laissez-faire about it.”
Here’s where it helps to have friends in the business: Calling on a security company with which his firm has worked for years, Givner arranged for a bomb-sniffing dog to sweep the area. He also doubled the number of security officers assigned to the event, arranged for two metal-detecting wands to check all guests, and extended the registration area by 15 feet to keep potential problems farther outside the facility—all in the few hours before the doors opened.
“There were additional costs of about $2,500, which the client was happy to pay,” Givner says. “If they didn’t want to pay for it, I would have pulled my staff from the venue; there’s a point at which my team’s safety overrides a client’s event. Fortunately, in this case, we were all on the same page.”
So what happened? The event went off without incident. “I wasn’t nervous after all the things we did, and I felt confident we had a secure facility—no one was getting in there.”
—Alesandra Dubin
Posted 06.20.05
This story originally appeared in the June/July 2005 issue of the BiZBash Event Style Reporter.
