FEC operational risk assessment considerations: Social Distancing

• 17th July 2020

At SMART Entertainment, we want to support our operators as they inevitably seek to reopen in a secure and safe manner. As a member of BALPPA, we are listening and learning about the changing governmental advice on what safe reopening looks look in the industry.

We have identified how SMART Entertainment can support your business with re-opening and feed into your new standard operating procedure. The points throughout this blog are extracted from the UK Reopening Guidance for Hospitality Businesses, specifically the ‘Family Entertainment centres operational risk assessment considerations’ section which can be found here.

The guidance is NOT a legal document, but it is intended to help hospitality businesses plan and prepare their own operational procedures measured against the overarching Government COVID-19 Secure guidelines. The references made are present in version 1.0 and will undergo revision as further guidance and operational practices develop. This guidance should be read in conjunction with the latest Government social distancing guidelines and premises closure restrictions.

Social Distancing

It is likely, and recommended, that when operators re-open that this will be on a reduced capacity to enable social distancing whilst within our facilities. Reviewing and setting lower occupancy within our facilities to suit the individual buildings and equipment design capacity, in line with best social distancing practice.

COVID19 Secure Guidelines for hospitality businesses

SMART Entertainment allows venues to manage their activity capacity. Our booking solutions will manage capacity and can accommodate temporary reductions (and increases) to the standard operating capacity. We can support venues with restricting adult and children admission numbers and participants and non-participants with our SMART Front Desk solution too.

SMART Entertainment has developed a new venue capacity feature within the BookMy Solutions. This is ideal for multi-activity operators whose venue capacity is lower than the combined [multiple] activity capacities with social distancing rules in effect.

You will need to ask people if they are from the same household/ group as per the government guidelines and would need to keep other people or groups at 2m or 1m with risk mitigation (where 2m is not viable). Outdoor gatherings are limited to members of any two households (or support bubbles), or a group of at most six people from any number of households.

COVID19 Secure Guidelines for hospitality businesses

Venues may need to make sure that customers are from the same household/group. To help achieve this, you can post a warning message that customers must agree to prior to making their booking. Venues can use additional information as an extra measure to reinforce this requirement which can be included in the booking confirmation.

The utilization of fixed capacity, timed play sessions, and pre booking are tools that can be used to achieve this and avoid traditional impulsive visits, queues at the entrances of our facilities and failure of social distancing. By developing techniques and practices to pre book time slots FEC’s can manage demand across the day and avoid large groups queuing at key points.

COVID19 Secure Guidelines for hospitality businesses

SMART’s BookMy Solutions allows venues to accept general admission bookings. These can be managed by session times or staggered arrival times. Our solutions are based upon admission capacity and can help you to limit the number of bookings and the number of people in the venue.

Further SMART Support on FEC operational risk assessment considerations will be released on Monday 20th July.

For further information on the SMART Entertainment solutions, contact us on 0333 444 0944 or email [email protected]