What is the Purple Guide? Event safety guidance explained

The Purple Guide is the UK events industry's own guidance on health, safety and welfare at events, published online by the Events Industry Forum and sold by subscription. It is not law: your duties come from health and safety legislation, and the Purple Guide is the good-practice reference that council and Safety Advisory Group guidance routinely points you to.

Key points

• Published by the Events Industry Forum: £50 plus VAT a year for one user, as at October 2026.
• Industry guidance, not law.
• The successor to HSE's HSG195, The Event Safety Guide (1999), which HSE had withdrawn by 2015.
• 45 chapters, more principles than numbers.
• Council and Safety Advisory Group guidance points to it. A SAG advises and does not approve; any licence decision belongs to the licensing authority.

What is the Purple Guide?

Its full title is The Purple Guide to Health, Safety and Welfare at Music and Other Events. The Events Industry Forum (EIF) publishes it on a not-for-profit basis and puts sales income, after administration costs, back into the industry as grants. Industry working groups, with regional and national government representatives, write the chapters. HSE has supported the guide since it began and still liaises with the Forum on its health and safety content.

It is written for outdoor events of every kind across the UK, from concerts to country fairs, and for organisers, councils, enforcers, emergency services, landowners and contractors. It is online only and revised chapter by chapter, and HSE links to it from its own event safety pages. The chapters we checked in October 2026 all show a publication date of 26 January 2026.

The EIF calls the guide non-prescriptive: it points to legal duties and to good practice that is not law, and expects every organiser to assess the risks of their own event. It is copyrighted and paywalled, so nothing from its text or tables is reproduced here; what follows comes from its public pages and from HSE, government and council publications.

Where it came from: the 1993 guide and HSG195

Two people died at the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in 1988, after which the Health and Safety Commission and Home Office ministers authorised new guidance on concert safety. In 1993 HSE, the Home Office and the Scottish Office published the Guide to Health, Safety and Welfare at Pop Concerts and Similar Events.

HSE replaced it in 1999 with a second edition: HSG195, The Event Safety Guide: a guide to health, safety and welfare at music and similar events. HSG195 is the original Purple Guide; Flintshire County Council, for one, describes today's guide as its replacement.

The EIF took over publication in 2012 and moved the guide online, with a launch at Portcullis House, Westminster, announced for 18 March 2014. By 2015 HSE's own event safety FAQ recorded HSG195 as withdrawn and replaced by the EIF's Purple Guide. Some local guidance still cites HSG195, but it is a withdrawn 1999 document, and a figure taken from it should say so.

Is the Purple Guide a legal requirement?

No. It is industry guidance, and it helps to keep three layers apart.

• Statute. In Great Britain the core duties come from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974: section 2 to your employees, and section 3 to others who may be affected, such as the audience, so far as is reasonably practicable. Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires a suitable and sufficient risk assessment covering both, with the significant findings recorded once you employ five or more people.
• More statute. The 1974 Act does not, in the main, extend to Northern Ireland, which has the Health and Safety at Work (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 and its own 2000 management regulations. HSE applies the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 to construction work at events. Under the Licensing Act 2003 (England and Wales), public safety is one of four licensing objectives, and the licensing authority decides whether to grant a premises licence and on what conditions.
• Official guidance. HSE's event safety pages, and its withdrawn HSG195. The Home Office's statutory guidance on Martyn's Law sits here too.
• Industry guidance. The Purple Guide.

HSE's 2015 FAQ noted that the Purple Guide may recommend more than the law strictly requires, and Flintshire County Council's event guidance says it is not legally binding and that organisers may manage risk in other effective ways.

This is a summary, not legal advice; for your own event, ask your licensing authority and advisers.

What the Purple Guide covers

The guide has 45 chapters, grouped here by us:

• Planning and management: Planning, Management and Risk Assessments; Health and Safety Principles; Licensing; Insurance; Safety Advisory Groups; Working with the Police; Contingency and Emergency Planning; Counter Terrorism; Communications.
• Site, structures and services: Venue and Site Design; Barriers and Fencing; Temporary Demountable Structures; Electrical and Lighting; Working at Height; Safe Use of LPG; Fire Safety; Vehicles; Transport Management; Zone Ex, the area outside the site that people cross to arrive and leave.
• People and crowds: Crowd Management; Information and Welfare; Accessibility; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion; Safeguarding Children and Young People; Volunteers; Worker Welfare; Dealing with Crime and Disorder.
• Welfare and environment: Medical; Sanitation; Water; Catering at Events; Campsites; Waste Management; Noise; Weather; Sustainability; Keeping Workers and Audiences Safe During a Pandemic.
• Activities and attractions: Amusements; Fireworks; Special Effects; Air Displays; Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Drones); Events on or Around Water; Adventure Sport Events; Animals and Welfare.

The welfare chapters matter more than a list suggests. HSE's event safety FAQ says toilets and medical care for the audience, drinking water, food safety, lost persons and child protection fall outside its areas of responsibility, and points to the Events Industry Forum's industry guidance on those matters.

Expect principles more than numbers:

• Medical. As UKHSA's review of event healthcare guidance describes the December 2024 edition, the chapter sorts events into five tiers, by attendance, duration, drug and alcohol use, activity risk and likely hospital referrals, and recommends the type of medical staff for each; that update removed the table of indicative staff numbers. The chapter has since been republished (26 January 2026) and its public contents still list a section on staffing levels; we have not read the subscription text. Documents still quoting a staffing table may rest on an earlier edition.
• Sanitation. Some councils republish the chapter's toilet ratios. Aberdeen City Council's toilet guidance, for example, credits it with 1 toilet per 100 women and 1 per 500 men, plus 1 urinal per 150, where the gate is open for less than six hours, assuming a 50:50 split. Longer days, alcohol and camping change the ratios: see how many toilets an event needs.

How Safety Advisory Groups and councils use it

A Safety Advisory Group (SAG) is a multi-agency group, usually coordinated by the local authority, with the emergency services at the table. HSE is clear that SAGs are non-statutory: they have no legal powers, cannot approve or prohibit an event and do not take over the organiser's legal duties. They advise; the organiser keeps the duties, and any licence decision is the licensing authority's. HSE inspectors cannot approve a safety plan either, and low-risk events such as village fetes are unlikely to need a SAG. Names vary: HSE's 2015 FAQ gave Event Planning and Operations Groups as the Scottish name, though some Scottish councils, Aberdeen among them, say Safety Advisory Group.

What SAGs and councils do is lean on the Purple Guide. In UKHSA's review, all 18 local event documents it examined, from councils, SAGs and ambulance trusts in all four nations, pointed readers to the Purple Guide, its predecessor HSG195 or the Green Guide. The Purple Guide has its own chapter on how SAGs work, and the Home Office's statutory guidance on Martyn's Law (para 8.22) names it and the Green Guide as sector guidance that responsible persons should check their security measures against, so that the two do not conflict. As at 20 October 2026 the Martyn's Law duties are not yet in force: that guidance sets an implementation period of at least 24 months from Royal Assent on 3 April 2025 (para 2.10). See Martyn's Law for events.

So when a SAG reads your plan, the Purple Guide is usually the yardstick, and departures from it are worth explaining before you are asked. The guide to preparing an event site plan for a Safety Advisory Group covers what to put in front of them.

How to get the Purple Guide

Buy it from the Purple Guide website. As at October 2026:

• Single user: £50 plus VAT a year. Subscriptions do not renew automatically.
• Organisations: access by IP address for up to 50, or up to 500, concurrent users.
• Purple Guide Lite: a shorter version for local events of fewer than 500 people, workers included, with its own subscription.
• Free to read: each chapter's introduction, section list and acknowledgements. The sections themselves need a login.

Using it alongside your own risk assessment

The Purple Guide does not assess your event; you do. HSE calls risk assessment "the key tool" for creating a safety plan. A workable order:

1. Start from your site, your audience and your activities, and list the hazards.
2. Read the chapters that match those hazards, not all 45.
3. Put a number and a source on every quantity, from toilets to capacity and exit widths, and say whether it came from a council, from HSG195 or from your own judgement.
4. Note the publication date of each chapter you relied on, because chapters are revised.
5. Record where you depart from the guide, and why.
6. Take it to the SAG early, while the site plan can still move.

Airship Event Designer, the Events mode of Airship Site Designer, is built around the same discipline. It lays out the site on your boundary, sizes toilets, water, stewards, entry lanes and exit width from the attendance, and gives every quantity its basis, a source you can open, the kind of authority behind it and how well we could check it. Where a figure rests on the Purple Guide it is cited, not quoted, and no Purple Guide text or table is reproduced: the toilet baseline comes from the Sanitation chapter's public preview, and the longer-day tiers from council reproductions. Medical cover above about 3,000 is left to your medical provider. The findings are inputs to your event safety plan; the SAG, the licensing authority and the duty-holders decide. Event Designer is in beta on Pro and above, switched on per account: see Event Designer and the sources behind every figure. For a funfair, see fairground ride safety at events: at fairgrounds HSE, not the council, enforces.

The Purple Guide describes good practice. Whether your event meets it is for you and your competent advisers to judge on your own site; the Safety Advisory Group advises, and the licensing authority decides any licence.

Questions organisers ask

Is the Purple Guide a legal requirement?

No. It is industry guidance; your duties come from health and safety law and any licence conditions.

Is the Purple Guide free?

No. A single-user subscription is £50 plus VAT a year as at October 2026; chapter introductions are free to read.

Who publishes the Purple Guide?

The Events Industry Forum, on a not-for-profit basis. It took over publication in 2012.

What replaced HSG195, the Event Safety Guide?

The Events Industry Forum's Purple Guide; by 2015 HSE recorded HSG195 as withdrawn and replaced by it.

Does the Purple Guide apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

It is written for the whole UK, but the law differs: Northern Ireland has its own health and safety Order, and the Licensing Act 2003 covers only England and Wales.

What is the difference between the Purple Guide and the Green Guide?

The Green Guide, the Sports Grounds Safety Authority's Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds (sixth edition, 2018), is written for sports grounds; the Purple Guide is written for events.

Do small events need the Purple Guide?

Purple Guide Lite covers local events of fewer than 500 people including workers; whatever the size, a proportionate risk assessment is the starting point.

Sources

• The Purple Guide (Events Industry Forum): home, About, Subscribe, FAQ and chapter preview pages, read 20 October 2026.
• HSE: Event safety frequently asked questions, updated 11 October 2024.
• HSE: The role of a local authority Safety Advisory Group, updated 12 October 2024.
• HSE: Event safety getting started and useful links; CDM 2015 in entertainment.
• HSE event safety FAQ, July 2015 capture (The National Archives).
• HSG195, The Event Safety Guide (HSE, 1999, withdrawn).
• Home Office Fire Service Circular 5/1993, 4 November 1993.
• Exhibition News, 10 February 2014, on the planned Westminster launch.
• Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 2, section 3 and section 84.
• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 3.
• Health and Safety at Work (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 and the Northern Ireland management regulations 2000.
• Licensing Act 2003, section 4 and section 18.
• UKHSA: Healthcare provision at events, a rapid scoping review, 19 February 2026.
• Home Office: Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 statutory guidance, paras 2.9, 2.10 and 8.22.
• SGSA: the Green Guide.
• Aberdeen City Council: Toilet Provision, pp.2 and 3.
• Flintshire County Council: Events and firework safety.

Last reviewed 20 October 2026.