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Kendal Calling, the award winning four day family event, kicked off in the sunshine on Thursday 26th July. Set in the spectacular Cumbrian countryside with a crowd pleasing line up including Hacienda Classical, Plan B & Catfish and the Bottlemen; the event covered 11 stages, with a sold out audience of 25,000 festival goers.
Kendal Calling is one of our most anticipated events. Staff and revellers alike can never wait to get back into the fields! The event was our biggest deployment of SIA licensed security staff and stewards to date. Our team, once again fully reunited, after covering two deployments last weekend at Blue Dot and Liverpool International Music Festival Festival to oversee the safety of this weekend’s visitors. Too soon the weather turned and thunderstorms brought heavy rain throughout the latter half of the weekend. Our team battled through the mud, cold and wet weather, and despite these conditions prevailed through supporting each other and going the extra mile. Staff morale was boosted by the excellent work of Supervisor, distributing umbrellas, hot soup and drinks to ensure everyone had plenty of breaks to warm though.
The key to our success? Teamwork, planning and preparation; taking a scientific approach. This was the 13th consecutive year FGH secured the event and worked with the Kendal Calling organisers, local police and medical teams. Our security team is as much of a part of the Kendal Calling experience as the stages and unique installations around the event. Our experienced teams worked closely with Cumbria Police to ensure a proactive approach to policing and securing the site. As such this year only 14 arrests took place and the police saw a fall in drug related crimes and offences. Subsequently our team has been praised for their friendly and helpful security presence. This reassured visitors and helped them enjoy the festivities.
Managing Director and Head of Security Peter Harrison said, “We came to Kendal Calling with the purpose of keeping people safe and we have been successful. Fantastic work to everyone in our team who pushed through another hour and went that little bit further than you needed to, just because being average is not for you. You are what makes FGH special and this keeps new contracts, awards and praise coming. You are the people keeping 5 million people safe this year.”
