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How to draw an event site plan for a Safety Advisory Group

An event site plan for a Safety Advisory Group is a scaled drawing of the whole site showing where everything stands and how people and vehicles move: entrances and exits with their widths, emergency routes and rendezvous points, welfare, structures, power, barriers and the capacity of each area. Draw it to a stated scale with a north point and a key, cover the build and derig as well as the live days, and send it with your event management plan as early as your council asks. In the examples below, councils want to hear about an event 6 weeks to 6 months ahead, depending on its size and kind, and want the plans themselves 6 weeks to 3 months ahead.

What a Safety Advisory Group is, and what it is not

A Safety Advisory Group (SAG) is a forum, usually co-ordinated by the local authority, where the council, the emergency services and other bodies discuss an event's safety arrangements with the organiser. HSE describes SAGs as non-statutory bodies, "not empowered to approve or prohibit events from taking place". The organiser keeps the principal legal duties. Attending may be voluntary, HSE says, though a council may require it, for example as a condition of using its land; Kirklees adds that it can be a condition of a licence. Permission sits with the landowner, the licensing authority and anyone else whose consent you need: Stockton-on-Tees describes its SAG as advising landowners, the council included, so that they can decide.

Three kinds of document come up at SAG meetings:

Statute: the law itself, such as the organiser's duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which Woking's event guidance names.
Official guidance: such as HSE's event safety pages and the Home Office's Fire safety risk assessment: open-air events and venues (2007). That guide is statutory guidance, published under Article 50 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to help people meet their duties under the Order; it is not law itself. Its text covers England and Wales; GOV.UK now lists it for England.
Industry guidance: such as the Purple Guide, a paid subscription from the Events Industry Forum, which York's template points to. It is not law; see what the Purple Guide covers.

What an event site plan has to show

We found no national template. The items below come from the council and fire service documents in the sources; your own council's list is the one that counts.

Scale, north point, key and grid

Bristol asks for a detailed site map drawn to scale. A 2017 checklist from the South Wales and Mid and West Wales fire and rescue services, written for small to medium events, lists among the documents needed to assess public safety a location plan at 1:25,000, site plans at 1:1,250, structure drawings at 1:100, 1:50 or 1:20 and a grid plan of the site; Argyll and Bute also asks for a gridded site plan. None of the SAG pages cited here mentions a north point, but England's planning practice guidance is a good model: plans for a planning application must be drawn to an identified scale and show the direction of north, and a linear scale bar is useful, especially for plans sent electronically. So include:

a scale bar as well as the ratio, since the plan will be printed and shared at sizes you do not control;
a north point, so wind, sun and approach roads read correctly;
a key for every symbol, as the example site layout plan in the Home Office open-air guide has;
a grid, so control, stewards and an ambulance crew can name the same spot;
a title block with the event name, plan version and date.

Entrances, exits and their widths

Mark every entrance and exit with its clear width, measured at its narrowest point, and the number of people it must take. The Home Office open-air guide sizes exits in two ways.

For open-air areas it works from flow: total exit width equals the number of people divided by the flow rate times the escape time. It suggests 109 people per metre per minute on most routes, standing areas included, and 73 within seated areas and on stairways, with an escape time of 5 to 10 minutes depending on the fire risk, and you should normally assume the widest exit is lost to fire. In its worked example, 4,200 people at a low-risk horticultural show need 3.85 m of exit width; at 1.05 m an exit that is four exits, and five once one is assumed lost to fire.

For marquees and other temporary structures, a single exit suits at most 60 people, more than 60 need at least two exits, and no exit should be narrower than 1.05 m.

Woking asks organisers to designate entrances and exits, circulation routes, vehicle access and evacuation paths, to allow safety zones round inflatables and fairground rides, and to plan where people will queue. For rides, see fairground ride safety at events.

Emergency access, rendezvous points and event control

Draw the emergency vehicle route from the public road to every area, with its width. The Home Office guide says routes for fire engines should have a road width of at least 3.7 m, 3.1 m clear at gates, 3.7 m clear height, a surface that can carry 12.5 tonnes and room to turn, with any turning circle at least 16.8 m across. It also suggests giving the fire service plans of the layout, access routes, firefighting equipment and hydrants. Those are England and Wales figures. Scottish Government guidance for existing non-residential premises, not written for events, gives 3.5 m gateways and a 14-tonne axle loading; ask your fire and rescue service which figures it works to.

Medway asks for the emergency evacuation access routes, with a wet-weather contingency for emergency vehicle access, and the location of event control and the lost children's point. Aberdeenshire lists rendezvous points, first aid points and command and control; York asks for emergency access routes, rendezvous points and evacuation arrangements covering the car parks.

Welfare, structures, power and barriers

Medway's list includes stages, caterers, generators, power, water, key distances and measurements, fencing and ground protection. Aberdeenshire adds barriers, toilets, accessible facilities, baby changing, meeting points, park-and-ride stops and glass or can exchange points. The Welsh checklist asks about overhead lines and underground services, neighbouring properties, the prevailing wind and flood risk. For welfare numbers, see how many toilets an event needs.

Capacities, and how you worked them out

Show the working, not just the number. The Welsh checklist asks for each area's capacity, and for medical and stewarding plans with their calculations. Put each area's usable size, the density you assumed and the resulting capacity on the plan or beside it, and say what you excluded, such as stages and bars. The method is in event capacity and occupant density.

Build, live and derig

Coventry asks organisers to cover the build-up and break-down phases in their risk arrangements. The site changes between phases: plant works where crowds will later stand, fences go up in stages and the emergency route may move, so draw a plan for each phase.

Security and hostile vehicle mitigation

Kirklees lists hostile vehicle mitigation (HVM), where applicable, among its example control measures. The NPSA and NaCTSO note on temporary vehicle security barriers asks whether emergency vehicles must get past a barrier and whether its position is built into the emergency egress plan, and points to your local police Counter Terrorism Security Advisor. Show where HVM meets the emergency route, and keep the detailed security layout on a separate plan for those who need it.

Martyn's Law, the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, will add duties for qualifying events: broadly, events open to the public, with checks on payment, tickets or membership at entry, where it is reasonable to expect 800 or more people present at once. As at 20 October 2026 those duties are not in force: section 3, which defines a qualifying event, and the duties in sections 5 and 6 are still marked prospective on legislation.gov.uk, and the SIA, which the Act makes the regulator, expects it to come into force in spring 2027. See Martyn's Law for events.

How to present the plan

Overall plan first, then detail. Aberdeenshire suggests an overall plan plus, depending on size, plans of the zones, spectator areas, stewarding positions and road closures.
Version and date every issue. Kirklees accepts early drafts and expects them to change, so make the current version obvious.
Make it readable on screen. Kirklees holds most meetings on Microsoft Teams and asks for a brief presentation.

Why plans are sent back

We found no national figures, but Stockton-on-Tees publishes its own. In 2025 its independent SAG reviewed 29 event safety plans: 86% arrived on time, up from 70% in 2024, yet 13 were still being assured within five days of the event, delays the report puts down to plans being updated and resubmitted close to the event. Five (17%) did not reach full safety assurance. The report says this does not mean an event is unsafe, but that there is a potential added risk to public safety. Kirklees says that where its SAG lacks assurance, the organiser is asked to address the concerns and resubmit; if concerns remain close to the date, the chair tells the landowner, who may reconsider letting the land.

Against the lists above, plans can fall short like this:

no scale, so no distance can be checked;
exits without widths, or without the number each must take;
an emergency route with no width, no wet-weather alternative and no gate where it crosses a fence;
capacities with no working;
the live days only, nothing for the build or derig;
late changes without a new version number.

How far ahead to submit

There is no single UK deadline, and some councils set two: one for telling them about the event and one for the documents. Published examples:

Medway: documentation, including the site layout plan, at least 8 weeks before the event.
Bradford: notify the SAG 6 months ahead as good practice, longer for complex or very large events; supporting documents 6 weeks ahead for smaller events and 12 weeks for larger ones, such as concerts, firework displays or any event with road closures.
Test Valley: notice of 6 weeks under 500 people, 3 months for 500 to 1,000 and 6 months above 1,000. It lists a site plan among the documents likely to be needed but sets no separate date for them.
York: the event management plan at least 3 months ahead, all final documents a month before.
Bristol: 8 to 12 weeks from first proposal to site permission for an event on council land, and up to 12 months of planning for a large event.

Work back from the slowest consent, too: Aberdeenshire warns that trunk road closure requests may take 6 to 8 weeks.

Drawing it in Airship Event Designer

Airship Event Designer, the Events mode of Airship Site Designer, draws zones, structures, welfare and barriers on your boundary, each marked as on site during the build, live days or derig, with trackway laid for the whole period. Its Event Safety Plan appendix prints the site plan in each phase, the basis of every demand figure, each zone's area, density and capacity with its farthest-exit distance, and the check findings with their basis. The security layout stays out unless you tick it in, and SAG members can view and comment through a review link without an account. The appendix is not an event safety plan: its findings are inputs, and the SAG, the licensing authority and the duty-holders decide. Event Designer is in beta on the Pro plan and above, switched on for each workspace on request. See the event outputs, build, live and derig and Event Designer.

Questions organisers ask

Does the Safety Advisory Group approve my event?

No. SAGs are non-statutory and advise; permission rests with the landowner and licensing authority, and the legal duties stay with the organiser.

Does an event site plan have to be drawn to scale?

Bristol asks for one to scale, and a Welsh fire and rescue services' checklist lists site plans at 1:1,250; an unscaled sketch cannot be checked for distances or widths.

How far in advance should I send my plan to the SAG?

It varies by council and by event. In the examples above, councils want notice of the event 6 weeks to 6 months ahead, and the plans themselves 6 weeks to 3 months ahead.

Should hostile vehicle mitigation be on the site plan?

Show where it meets the emergency route; keep the full security layout on a separate plan for those who need it.

Is the Purple Guide a legal requirement?

No. It is industry guidance that councils such as York point to; the legal duties come from statute.

This guide is not legal advice: your council's requirements, the SAG, the licensing authority and the duty-holders have the final word.

Sources

Last reviewed: 20 October 2026.

Plan your next event site with Airship Event Designer

Event Designer, the Events mode of Airship Site Designer, sizes the event from the attendance, lays out the site and checks it against UK event guidance, with every figure showing its source. In beta on Pro and above, switched on per account. Its findings are inputs to your event safety plan: the Safety Advisory Group, the licensing authority and the duty-holders decide.

See what Event Designer does → Ask for beta access