A catalogue of errors relating to the Hope & Glory festival organisers, tinyCOW, has been revealed in a report commissioned by Liverpool City Council.
The report concluded that tinyCOW were responsible for the disastrous event. The report states that the city centre site was not ready for use when festival goers arrived and that the event’s management plan “was not fit for purpose”.
Some of the failures identified in the report include a lack of emergency escape plan, festival-goers being made to feel unsafe and acts running heavily behind schedule.
There were also no provisions for designated area’s for lost children or vulnerable adults. The report states that the event posed a “significant risk to public safety”
The report states that event organiser Lee O’Hanlon “left the site, was uncontactable and wasn’t seen again until the end of the day”, the report stated.
The report states that further background checks that the council may have undertaken in to tinyCOW and the event organisers would not have stopped the event from going ahead.
Mayor Joe Anderson said: “This report was all about learning lessons, and although our procedures have served us well for the past ten years, the context and environment for staging events has changed in recent years, so we need to be honest with ourselves and reflect on the processes and procedures that are in place and react to the recommendations put forward.
“As a result of this report, we will work with our partners to put in place enhanced planning procedures for events which will find the right balance between scrutinising documents and not making the process too bureaucratic for organisers.
“If the company hadn’t gone into liquidation, I would have asked Merseyside Police to investigate the financial liabilities of the Hope and Glory Festivals Ltd. As far as I’m concerned, they have a moral obligation to reimburse disappointed ticket-holders who are out of pocket and I will be making this point to the liquidators.”