Music venue owner develops safety platform

A North Shields entrepreneur is combining expertise in health and safety with a passion for live music to launch a new platform designed to improve standards across the events and night-time economy sectors.

Mark Elliott, co-owner of grassroots music venue The Engine Room, has launched Gigsavvy, a digital compliance and training platform aimed at venues, promoters, engineers and event organisers.

The platform has been developed to help businesses manage health and safety responsibilities, workforce training and compliance requirements through a single digital system.

Alongside IOSH-approved bite-sized e-learning courses, Gigsavvy offers tools for risk assessments, incident reporting, compliance monitoring and a directory of trained professionals working within the sector.

Mark, who brings more than two decades of experience as a health and safety trainer, assessor and advisor, working across industries including oil and gas, construction, engineering, manufacturing and renewables, said: “You’ve got people and workers moving between venues constantly – engineers, crews, promoters, bands – and sometimes things can become a bit too informal. 

“When you look at live events properly, there are real risks involved. 

“People are working at height, working with electricity, building stages and lighting rigs. 

“A lot of the same principles from industries like oil and gas and construction apply, but the culture around safety in some live event spaces and the night-time economy hasn’t always kept pace.”

“Gigsavvy brings together accredited training and compliance tools in one place – so venues, event organisers and night-time businesses have everything they need to keep their people safe and demonstrate they’re taking it seriously. 

“It works for a sixty-capacity grassroots venue like ours, but it scales right up to larger venues or festivals with potentially thousands of people attending.”
Mark’s experience running The Engine Room, one of the region’s best-known intimate live music venues, highlighted gaps in how health and safety procedures are managed across the music and events industries, helping inspire the creation of the platform.

The project has secured support from Innovate UK and Creative UK and comes as businesses across the night-time economy prepare for an increasingly complex regulatory environment, including the introduction of Martyn’s Law.

Gigsavvy is now preparing for wider rollout, with discussions under way with industry organisations and training providers to explore partnership opportunities and encourage greater adoption of safety training and compliance practices across the sector.

Mark added: “Martyn’s Law is a significant moment for the sector, and it’s right that venues prepare for it. 

“But it’s important to be clear – training under Martyn’s Law is not yet stated as mandatory. 

“What is required, under existing health and safety law, is that employers demonstrate competence and that they’ve properly assessed and managed the risks their people face. 

“That obligation exists now, regardless of Martyn’s Law. Gigsavvy applies straightforward measures to meet that duty and evidence that you’ve done it.

“I’ve spent twenty years training managers and workers to stay safe in some of the most hazardous industries in the world. 

“The live events and night-time economy deserve the same standard of safety thinking – and now there’s a platform built specifically to help deliver it. 

“Grassroots venues are the heartbeat of the live music industry. 

“If Gigsavvy helps protect even a handful of them by making compliance less daunting and more accessible, that’s exactly what it’s here to do.”

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