Live event insurers must adapt to evolving threats

Concertgoers take a ‘selfie’ during the Alfa Future People electronic music festival in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. By teaming up with smartphone tech developers, this event gave concertgoers free access to the FindFace mobile app, which can provide facial recognition in crowds. (Photo: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg)

The live event industry — in partnership with providers of property and casualty insurance — has a strong track record of solving safety threats as they arise.

After a string of weather-related incidents including those at the 2011 Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium, during which a violent storm took lives and ripped through infrastructure, or the Indiana State Fair, where a wind-driven stage collapse also turned deadly, insurance carriers and industry groups worked together to develop and implement new safety regulations.