SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
JUNE 2017
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JUNE 2017
Introducing Dan Barry, the President and Owner of the PEI-based event security company Toursec, as a successful Atlantic Canadian entrepreneur just doesn’t seem to do him justice – it’s too mundane. He holds a degree in Emergency Management. He trained at the DHS FEMA Emergency Management Institute in Maryland and attended Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. He’s an expert in both Mass Gathering Life Safety and Use of Force. He lives live events. 365 days a year. He knows the ins and outs of any event security scenario you can imagine, indoors or outdoors. Toursec has worked alongside security details for presidents, prime ministers, and royalty. They’ve also made a name for themselves in Entertainment Security in both film and television: Toursec provided total security for Academy Award Winner Daniel Day Lewis’ film The Ballad of Jack and Rose and for Live with Regis and Kelly when they came to shoot in PEI in 2005 and 2010 respectively. More than once, a big band has come to perform in the Maritimes and left town with a Toursec detail in tow to finish the remainder of their tour. But as exciting as it all seems, Dan would be the first one to tell you that it’s not a career of glitz and glam. “You’re doing things that people at an event don’t even know happens; it’s behind the scenes of behind the scenes, really,” he explained to Spotlight on Business Magazine in early June. But don’t let Dan’s reputation as the ultimate “Professional Worry Wart” fool you. He shared a memory or two – including one about the star of the “show about nothing” – that really prove that this industry- leading expert in Safe Venue Design and self-described “chronic teacher” can sometimes find time to embrace the lighter side of the invaluable service that he and his team provides.
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JUNE 2017 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
By David MacDonald O ver the span of a 25-plus year career in the event security industry, Dan has seen it all. He can recall a time when it wasn’t uncommon to get a phone call from your employer just hours before a major indoor event only to be handed a makeshift map on a napkin of all the exits and washrooms on arrival. He said he remembers when it was a world of “bouncers and big guys.” “When something bad happens at an event now, it becomes the event.” “It’s getting further away from that ‘Here’s your shirt, now go work’ industry of days gone by, but I still see some major faux pas when I go to events as a spectator,” he explained. “There is still a belief among some of the event planners out there that they only need to do the bare minimum. It’s because there is a temp agency mentality around most big events. Event planners hire as many event security compa- nies as they need to fill what are essentially moats through- out the event space. It’s more or less a bunch of security guards looking for beer being passed across barriers and needless to say there’s minimal skill there. Don’t get me wrong, if the event runs smoothly and they’ve prevented outside beer from being passed through a fence, or what
have you, that’s great – especially if the client is happy. But given today’s temperament, do those guards know how to respond to the potential dangers of crowds? So many live events go with the lowest bidder for security – which is a mentality that actually kept us from joining the industry sooner than we did – and that means in some cases a company rents its shirts to the kids they hire who have no training and no means of communication. That’s just not acceptable.” It’s a hard-learned lesson that event security considerations can no longer be merely a cost centre, Dan explained. “When something bad happens at an event now, it becomes the event. In the old days you had to have security because you need to screen people at the gate – you don’t want them bringing alcohol in and impacting your alcohol sales. And at most events you’re going to have people who have a few too many beers and you need to escort them out. Maybe you need to keep a mosh pit in-check or escort an act to their tour bus. Those were basically the things that made security a necessity at an event say 20 years ago. You just needed to be a presence. We’re now more of an infor- mation piece than we’ve ever been. People at an event now expect security to know the event site in and out. That’s because as an industry, we’ve mostly moved beyond the arms folded, cold stare image of the past.
We’re approachable and knowledgeable. People expect you to be coordinated with the police, to have emergency
toursec.com
“It doesn’t matter if an event is run perfectly, there’s always a small magnitude of chaos in any large crowd situation. The key is to never stand back and let things unfold. We stay engaged.”
plans in place, they expect you to get that they’ve just spent maybe a hundred dollars or more on a ticket and that they just want to enjoy the show free of worry – and we do every- thing we can to make that happen.” Toursec delivers that peace of mind. Dan has never lost a client to a competitor because, he explained, he has every reason to want to do things right. “For starters, I don’t want to be sued,” he laughed. “But unethical practices and shoddy training do seriously sink a lot of companies in this industry. You can’t hire people who have a reputa- tion for using force when it’s not called for. Like I said, that kind of thing becomes the event. You need to know where you stand and what you’re permitted to do. I also own a mainstream security company that has over 10,000 arrests under its belt, so that’s really informed how I’ve trained my Toursec teams.” Dan trains Toursec recruits in the principals of the Incident Command System, a collective of police, fire, EMS, and other response and regulatory agencies. “ICS is an incident management system. We use this system at our events and I train for it with the best. We recently participated in an
all-agency exercise built around a recent incident where an explosion has occurred at a high-attendance indoor event,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if an event is run perfectly, there’s always a small magnitude of chaos in any large crowd situation. The key is to never stand back and let things unfold. We stay engaged. We don’t just monitor situations that seem like they may escalate; we walk through the crowd, in pairs, and engage groups of friendly people in a friendly manner, ask them how their day or night is going and how they’re liking the show – it lets the general crowd know we’re there and we’re approachable.” On top of that, Toursec comes well-equipped on the tech side of things. Dan has invested in a Police Specification Command Post with three dispatch consoles in constant contact with guards, police, fire and EHS. “This is great for the Quick Response team – a QR team – and if there’s an incident, they go in and dealwith it. At some of the larger festivals we do, we utilize a CCTV system and at others a spotting system. If there’s a fight called we can
provide security for everything from retail to industrial warehouse locations. I also operate RMG, which is a little more niche-based, and there we specialize in security for the heavy industrial and healthcare sectors. Across my companies, there are just under 80 training courses avail- able to employees who want to move up to different posi- tions – and that’s in addition to mandatory training, like the DT course my QR guys take.”
be there in seconds. These guys are trained and certified in Defensive Tactics, which is a program by the Human Factors Research Group – the same course a police academy cadet walks out with. It’s absolutely police training. The reason is that what comes with that is what’s called a Forced Contin- uum or Use of Force and Control Continuum. It means you are certified to use force that is tactically, medically, and legally sound. That’s the training my QR team gets. Keep in mind, the knob doesn’t go up to ten like it does in policing – it’s still private security – and my guys are specifically trained to recognize this, but it’s still critical to have in order to quickly defuse escalating situations in a large crowd. It’s still about presence, but it’s done right now.” “It’s still about presence, but it’s done right now.” Dan said he’d like to see industry standards change. Far too often, he explained, event planners look at how many shows a given company has under its belt as opposed to their qualifications.
Dan even taught the last Defensive Tactics (DT) course his Toursec team completed.
“In Atlantic Canada right now, there are only eight instruc- tors for the Human Factors Research Group and CPTED [Crime prevention through environmental design] programs – that’s it. I had to go to police academy to get this qual- ification and was actually just renewed a couple of weeks back. Of those eight people who hold the same qualifica- tion, three of them work for me, one is the Head of Correc- tion at Success College, two of them run the security program at NSCC Truro, one is an adjunct professor there, and one is a sheriff’s instructor in PEI. If you look at the ‘Who showed
“I’ve got a mainstream company called APPS and we
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JUNE 2017
up?’ of the situation, we’re the only private company. And that’s how we provide a better quality, more reliability.”
“The coolest experience I’ve had in all my years was just six years ago in PEI at Credit Union Place when Jerry Seinfeld came to town. We provided security and his manager was talking with a group of us in the back before the perfor- mance and he [Jerry Seinfeld] all of a sudden came and joined the discussion. The best part of it all was learning that he is him, if you get me,” Dan laughed. “It felt like I was in an episode of Seinfeld. His whole demeanour is just like his character – he should have never been paid that much to star in that show! There was no pretense; he engaged everybody.” For Dan and the Toursec family, the only problem is the one you’re not prepared for. “Ninety-nine percent of people are great to deal with – they’re there to have a great time and, quite frankly, they’re one of our biggest assets. I encour- age vigilance in everybody but when you need to put your guard down at an event, a good time you’ve worked hard to deserve, it’s nice to know that someone with a keen eye is in control of the situation and I think having that in place goes a long way when it comes to selling tickets.”
While Dan sees the training he provides to his Toursec employees as a retention tool, he’s also happy every time one of his employees embarks on a career in law enforce- ment. “The better trained your employees are, the more comfortable and confident they are doing their job and that translates into people who are happy to come to work. But that being said, I’ve had somewhere in the ballpark of 70 former employees go on to careers in law enforcement – and I’ve personally been involved in some of their applica- tion processes. It’s an honour.” “If you look at the ‘Who showed up?’ of the situation, we’re the only private company.” But it’s not all contingency planning and risk management. Dan explained that every now and then, once everything is in place and it’s almost show time, a memory to last a life time can be made unexpectedly.
Visit Toursec.com for more information.
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JUNE 2017 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
TOURSEC
Toll Free 800.999.2336 Toursec America 213.674.8611
STRATFORD 1(902)367.1277 28D Myrtle St Stratford HALIFAX 1(902)481.9001 7 Mellor Avenue Dartmouth
www.toursec.com
as spotlighted in the JUNE 2017 issue of SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
www.spotlightonbusinessmagazine.com
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