BRIT Awards – Accreditation and COVID-19

Who are they?

The British Record Industry Trusts (BRITs) Awards with Mastercard are the annual showcase for the UK music industry. It is the biggest awards event in the British music industry’s calendar. In 2021 the event ran on the 11th of May 2021, with the accreditation system launched on 15th April.

The requirements

As the UK began to consider resuming large scale events in 2021, it was announced that the BRITs would run under the umbrella of the Events Research Programme (ERP) with support from the UK Government Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). It would host the first indoor audience in the UK since the start of COVID-19.

The success of the event would be an important measure to determine when and how far other events and indoor spaces would be allowed to open.

Due to the large-scale production levels required by the BRITs a crew of 3,000 people would be needed to work across a 15 day build period at the O2 Arena London.

Due to the ERP categorisation, it was a requirement to:

• Capture the pre-screening health information of participants

• Ensure participants agreed to all waivers and terms and conditions

• Inform and educate participants as to the processes which needed to be followed

• Track and record time sensitive testing

• Ensure area capacity via access control

• Track movements to maintain an internal track and trace solution

The time between the decision to stage the event with an audience and the first day of buildup was short so any solution would need to be implemented quickly.

With the BRITs being a charitable project and cuts in the budget due to COVID-19, there was the additional challenge to deliver the solutions with minimal increase in the cost.

Our Approach

Accredit Solutions having provided the accreditation services to the BRITs for the previous three years were in a place in which we could assist. When the project was announced Accredit Solutions were coming to the end of the build and implementation of Accredit-GO.

Accredit-GO, backed by Innovate UK as part of the UK Governments sustainable innovation fund, offered a full range of COVID-19 tools to assist organisers opening their events safely.

The tools were built over the previous year in collaboration with our clients in different territories and different event types including award shows, football, rugby, cricket, American football and basketball.

Working with the various stakeholders from production companies, the legal team, local authorities, testing providers, security to venue managers, Accredit produced a comprehensive plan to manage the requirements for all event participants. This fulfilled the requirements of the UK Government whilst also keeping it within the BRIT’s budget requirements.

The process launched with the standard data collection process. The records were then transitioned seamlessly through the Accredit-GO process.

The first part of the process was a full health and safety briefing covering not only COVID-19 but many other aspects of build and break safety information.

Following this the secondary health portal was used asking 12 COVID-19 related health declaration questions which risk rated the staff and triggered the heads-up messaging to the Health and Safety Team.

Layered scanning would check the status of the person as they arrived at the O2 Arena site and proceeded further through the venue for access purposes, track and trace and capacity management.

Daily tests were recorded on the system and rules within the Access Control solution would direct users, who required a new test, through the process.

Our onsite solution was used across the 15 build days and the live show day. In total Accredit-GO processed:

• 2,975 Staff and guests

• 1,978 Health and safety inductions

• 2,800 COVID-19 health declaration forms

• 36,000 Answered questions and risk assessed

• 182,000 Access scans and results

• 4,876 Tests recorded

• 67 Rules of Access checking test results and zones.

• 16 Tracked spaces

The full process was managed by two client administrators with a small support team of temporary staff backed up by venue security and testing partners. The solutions seamlessly integrated with the accreditation process and automated much of what could have become a laborious process involving several different systems.

The Benefits

• Pre-screening questions for participants

• A health and safety portal with guidance and compliance quiz

• Terms and conditions and waivers section for participants to comply with

• A daily health check form with automatic risk assessed results

• An E-Pass (mobile pass) deployed on successful completion

• A heads-up alert to health authorities of any high-risk submissions

• A test recording process which could require re-tests at certain periods

• An intelligent access control process checking health form, test results, zones / days of access along with standard approvals

• A space capacity monitoring solution and real-time / historical report of access

The Outcome

The show, along with the new processes, were a massive success. The BRITs were able to process over 3,000 accreditations with the final event hosting over 4,000 attendees without a single COVID-19 incident. The event has since been used by the Government as an example, along with other test events, to show how to safely reopen the events and entertainment industry.

Feedback

Event Organiser

As ever Accredit took to the challenge and added complexity brought by the COVID-19 situation and just got on with it without fuss! Thank you for supporting us in such testing times. The creation, delivery and operation of the system was faultless, and the fact that it prompted all the team to re-test when required was a triumph!
Adrian Carter (Event Manager BRIT Awards)

User Feedback:
Accreditation Manager – Press / Artists Guests

Absolutely agreed… really smooth process this year… Thanks all so much
Dina van der Elst
Consultant BPI

User Feedback:
Accreditation Manager – Crew, Production

Thanks, from us too, the support for any issues this year was really great.
Julie Chennells
Ginger Owl Productions (Events) Ltd.

Innovate UK Monitoring Officer

This was a very strong project and would make a perfect case study as is very high profile with the pilot study at the recent BRITs for example, amongst many others!
John Heywood
Innovate UK