If you work in event production in the UK, RAMS are part of your daily life. Risk Assessment and Method Statements are required for virtually every job involving temporary structures, rigging, staging, power distribution, or any other physical work on an event site. Yet RAMS remain one of the most commonly misunderstood compliance requirements in the industry — often treated as a box-ticking exercise rather than a genuine safety tool.
This guide explains the legal framework behind RAMS, how CDM 2015 applies to events, and what production companies need to do to stay compliant and keep people safe.
What are RAMS?
RAMS is an acronym that stands for Risk Assessment and Method Statement. Although the two documents are often produced together and referred to as a single entity, they serve distinct purposes:
Risk Assessment: A systematic process of identifying hazards associated with a task or activity, evaluating the likelihood and severity of harm, and determining what control measures are needed to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. A risk assessment answers the question: what could go wrong, and how bad could it be?
Method Statement: A document that describes how a task will be carried out safely, step by step. It incorporates the control measures identified in the risk assessment and provides a practical guide for the people doing the work. A method statement answers the question: how will we do this work safely?
Together, a RAMS document demonstrates that you have thought about the risks of a task and have a plan to manage them. It is both a planning tool and a compliance record.
The legal framework
RAMS are not explicitly named in any single piece of UK legislation. Instead, the requirement to produce them arises from several overlapping laws and regulations:
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 places a general duty on employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety, and welfare of their employees and anyone else affected by their work. Producing RAMS is one of the primary ways to demonstrate compliance with this duty.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessments of the risks to their employees and others. This is the specific regulation that mandates risk assessment as a formal process.
The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) apply to all construction work in the UK — and this is where events production companies are often caught out.
CDM 2015 and events: why it applies
CDM 2015 applies to all construction work, which is defined broadly. The regulations cover the construction, alteration, fitting-out, commissioning, renovation, repair, upkeep, redecoration, maintenance, decommissioning, demolition, and dismantling of structures. Crucially, "structure" includes any temporary structure.
For event production companies, this means CDM 2015 applies to work involving:
- Erecting and dismantling temporary staging and platforms
- Rigging — flying lighting, sound, and scenic elements from temporary or permanent structures
- Installing temporary power distribution systems
- Building temporary structures such as marquees, grandstands, and barriers
- Any work involving structural elements that could affect the safety of people on or near the site
This is a point of confusion for many event companies. CDM 2015 is often associated with the construction industry, and event production companies may not realise that their work falls within scope. But the HSE is clear: if you are erecting, altering, or dismantling temporary structures, CDM applies.
RAMS must be site-specific and task-specific
One of the most common failings with RAMS in the events industry is the use of generic templates that are not adapted for the specific site and task. A generic risk assessment for "rigging" that gets reused on every job without modification does not meet the legal standard of being "suitable and sufficient."
Every RAMS document should be specific to:
- The site: What are the particular hazards of this venue? Is it an outdoor field with uneven ground, a historic building with limited load-bearing capacity, or a purpose-built arena? Each site presents different risks.
- The task: What specific work is being done? Rigging a 2-tonne lighting rig from a permanent grid is a different task from rigging the same rig from a ground-supported truss system. The method statement must reflect the actual work being performed.
- The people: Who is doing the work? What are their competencies and certifications? Are there members of the public nearby who could be affected?
- The environment: What are the conditions? Working at height in an outdoor environment has different risks from the same work indoors. Weather conditions, time of day, and site access all affect the risk profile.
Writing effective risk assessments
A risk assessment follows a structured process:
- Identify the hazards: Walk through the task mentally (or physically, during a site visit) and identify everything that could cause harm. In event production, common hazards include working at height, manual handling of heavy equipment, electrical risks, moving vehicles on site, falling objects, and noise exposure.
- Identify who might be harmed: This includes your own crew, other contractors on site, venue staff, and members of the public.
- Evaluate the risk: For each hazard, assess the likelihood of it occurring and the severity of harm if it does. This is typically done using a risk matrix that rates likelihood and severity on scales (for example, 1-5) and multiplies them to produce a risk score.
- Determine control measures: For each significant risk, identify what measures will be taken to reduce it. Follow the hierarchy of controls: eliminate the hazard if possible, substitute with something less hazardous, use engineering controls, then administrative controls, and finally personal protective equipment (PPE) as a last resort.
- Record and communicate: Document the assessment and ensure everyone involved in the work has read and understood it.
Writing effective method statements
The method statement is the practical companion to the risk assessment. It describes how the work will actually be done, incorporating the control measures from the risk assessment into a step-by-step procedure.
A good method statement for event production work includes:
- A description of the work to be carried out
- The sequence of operations, step by step
- The equipment and materials to be used
- The personnel required and their roles
- The safety measures and PPE required at each stage
- Emergency procedures — what to do if something goes wrong
- Any permits required (for example, hot work permits, working at height permits)
Common event RAMS categories
Event production companies typically need RAMS for several recurring categories of work:
- Rigging and flying: Suspension of lighting, sound, video, and scenic elements from overhead structures. This is high-risk work that requires detailed method statements covering load calculations, rigging points, secondary safety bonds, and inspection procedures.
- Working at height: Any work where a person could fall a distance liable to cause injury. This includes work from ladders, scaffolding, mobile elevated work platforms (MEWPs), and access towers. Falls from height remain one of the leading causes of workplace fatalities in the UK.
- Temporary power: Installation of temporary electrical distribution systems. Risks include electrocution, fire, and cable routing hazards. RAMS should cover the electrical installation, earthing arrangements, RCD protection, and cable management.
- Pyrotechnics and special effects: Use of pyrotechnics, flame effects, haze, and other special effects. These carry obvious fire and inhalation risks and typically require additional permits and specialist competence.
- Crowd management: For events with public attendance, managing crowd flow, emergency evacuation, and crowd density. While not strictly construction work, crowd management risk assessments are a fundamental part of event safety planning.
Principal contractor requirements
Under CDM 2015, when there is more than one contractor on a project, a principal contractor must be appointed. In the events context, this is often the event organiser or the production management company. The principal contractor has a duty to plan, manage, monitor, and coordinate health and safety during the construction phase.
As a subcontractor providing services on an event site, you will almost certainly be required to submit your RAMS to the principal contractor for review and approval before work can start. Principal contractors will not allow work to commence without signed-off RAMS — this is standard practice across the industry and is a CDM requirement.
Your RAMS should be submitted well in advance of the event, not handed over on arrival at site. Many principal contractors require RAMS submission a minimum of two weeks before the event to allow time for review and any necessary revisions.
NexusRMS includes document management features that allow event production companies to store RAMS templates, site-specific documents, and compliance records against individual projects and bookings. This keeps your safety documentation organised and accessible when principal contractors or venue managers request it.
Taking RAMS seriously
RAMS are not paperwork for the sake of paperwork. They are a legal requirement, a planning tool, and a safety record. The event production companies that take RAMS seriously — producing site-specific, task-specific documents that are genuinely used to plan and manage work — are the ones that protect their people, satisfy their clients, and maintain their reputation in an industry where safety is non-negotiable.