Like many others have I’ve been looking at the experiences of GP Prague.
Firstly I think it bears some mention to the exceptional performance by so many in exceptional circumstances.

Many judges who were there have been expressing their feelings at the time it was happening. Nearly all of them feature some amount of shock and worry, which is totally understandable and natural, and despite this the team pulled together and did what needed to be done. Players were evacuated, traders got support when it became evident that they were going to take a significant amount of their stock with them, Judges remained calm and communicated what they knew to support each other and players and most significantly everyone made it out ok.

While the situation was extremely unfortunate I feel on reflection that we as a team got very luck. We had no established procedures for this other than the ones we have learnt from our outside lives and many had only been on site a very short period so the layout and options were largely unknown. The timing also meant that the venue was a lot quieter than it would have been at other times when the amount of people requiring evacuation would have greatly changed the challenge involved.

This morning I have been wondering what we can take away from this to improve our chances in the future from having to rely on what our existing skills can be made to fit on the fly?

I think I feel safe in say that I would like to put out for consideration that large scale events need to have team leads brief judges on what the evacuation routes are if needed and have them as part of an explicit information cascade from organisers down to floor judges to make it easier to account for each person being away safely.

I appreciate that this is more work to already intense roles however I feel it is important.
In the face of potential shock on the parts of staff, traders and players an established plan and knowledge of the environment give us the best chance of feeling safe that we are doing what we can.

All of this is just my observation and opinion, thank you for taking the time to read.

M

Thanks for sharing Maverick. I wasn't there, in the middle of a large-scale crisis, and I can't know what it was like. On that note, acknowledging the limitations of written text on the internet to convey tone and intent, please take this in the unconditionally positive way in which it is intended and accept my thanks to yourself, and our peers, for the excellent way you all came together to keep everyone safe and get the event back on track…

Something of this scope and scale is unprecedented and hard to prepare for. That said, it's everyone's responsibility to know where the fire exits and bathrooms are, and the assembly points. Do you know where they are at your local shop? Does this information form part of your Head Judge announcement at your events? Something else to think about for the future :)

I know this doesn't work for staff on the late shift, but perhaps it's something that the Head Judge could walk people through during their morning briefing?

My best solution would be a fire drill, although that's a logistical impossibility at an event the size of a GP. Perhaps something that we should all think of more often, however, at our own stores.

Was there anyone from the venue staff responsible for site safety? How well did they link in with the event organisers? Was there an identifiable fire warden managing the evacuation? Were you able to “tick off” players registered for events at the evacuation point?

What can we take away? Preparedness makes us better! Easier said than done, I know…

Edited Steve Ford (Jan. 31, 2017 07:07:48 AM)

In the past, TournamentCenter required every judge on staff to attend at least one of several safety briefings (approx. 20 minutes).
I'm not sure if this was the case in Prague but I don't remember seeing anything in the forums or on site.

This is probably something that should be picked up again and spread to other tournament organisers as a starting point.

Agreed Jonas and I do want to say explicitly I'm not intending any kind of blame activity or culture in this thread.

All things being what they were the team did amazing and that the take away from that side of it, but future oppertunities to ease the strain if faced with a similar situation is also important enough to look at.

Edited Michael Chamberlain (Jan. 31, 2017 08:31:42 AM)

How were the evacuation orders announced, over the PA system?

Originally posted by Tomas Sukaitis:

How were the evacuation orders announced, over the PA system?

Yes and then through floor judges and staff.


Michael, I could not agree with you more. Thanks for your thoughts on this. If it was Saturday and there was 2,5k of players instead of the maybe 300-400 players then that would have been a much tougher job.

I feel as a community we should push for mandatory huddles before GP's with instructions for what to so in these situations.

I wonder if we have any fire marshalls or folk trained in these situations in our program to help write some framework?

Once again, superb job to all who were there who rose up when it needed to be done.

Originally posted by Tomas Sukaitis:

How were the evacuation orders announced, over the PA system?

Yes and then through floor judges and staff.


Michael, I could not agree with you more. Thanks for your thoughts on this. If it was Saturday and there was 2,5k of players instead of the maybe 300-400 players then that would have been a much tougher job.

I feel as a community we should push for mandatory huddles before GP's with instructions for what to so in these situations.

I wonder if we have any fire marshalls or folk trained in these situations in our program to help write some framework?

Once again, superb job to all who were there who rose up when it needed to be done.

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 9:02 PM, Steve Ford
<forum-33142-1e6c@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
> I know this doesn't work for staff on the late shift, but perhaps it's
> something that the Head Judge could walk people through during their morning
> briefing?


All staff need an adequate briefing on all aspects of how the
tournament is running. Giving the 2nd or 3rd shift less information
that they need hurts them and the event at large. It might not be the
HJ who gives this briefing, but someone needs to do it adequately.

–
Gareth Pye - chatterof.mtgjudg.es
Level 2 MTG Judge, Melbourne, Australia

Hi all,

I came across this forum topic quite late, so sorry for that.

Let me start by thanking everyone who helped in this evacuation process, and helped us to make the best out of this weekend for the players.

I believe it's the role of a TO (= ourselves) to make sure that our entire event team (the people in charge of the event, not the ones in charge of the tournament) are fully aware of the evacuation procedures of the venue.
Every venue we go to have their own procedures, and they take the lead in these procedures. In some venues, they actually do take the lead, in others (like the one in Prague) we as a TO better take initiative if we want it to actually happen. For those of you who attended GP Brussels in 2015, you might remember we had a team of safety consultants who did an audit of the safety procedures and safety of the event. We took their feedback as the basis of our safety planning.

As Jonas mentioned before, we've integrated “safety briefings” at our events in 2016 (after the audit at GP Brussels), and made these obligatory for all judges to attend before the start of their shifts. This caused many negative feedback from the community, as this is not very interesting and requested an earlier arrival before your shift. I must admit that the content could have been optimized, but from our perspective, it was a first step in creating awareness for this topic.
It's up to us to make shure that all parties involved in the management of an evacuation (TO, production staff, stage staff & team leads) know these procedures as well. That's why we started with staff-briefings on Thursday night, instead of the obligated judge briefings.

We're happy to see that many people in the community now feel the need for these briefings and are more open for this.
We did an internal debriefing of this event to update our procedures and internal communication process, and will continue doing so for our upcoming GPs.

Wouter Maenhaut
Managing Partner
tournamentcenter.eu / Play-MTG.eu
wouter@tournamentcenter.eu