What it's like to... Organise a festival

He's the man who hangs out with Paul Weller, Simon Cowell, McFly, Madness and Kaiser Chiefs. He's the expert who spends 12 months making sure that the people who converge for one day in a muddy field go home with smiles on their faces.

Jonathan Smith, who lives on the Weston Park Estate, is one of the UK's foremost health and safety experts. He specialises in making sure people are safe at concerts: though when he's not doing that he's busy flying around the world as part of a taskforce of experts who demine inhospitable areas like Afghanistan.

As festival season gears up and fans look forward to a summer of music, Jonathan is perfectly placed to describe what it's like to run a rock gig. After all, he's worked with Chris Evans at CarFest, chaperoned Boy George for two weeks in Dubai and will be rubbing shoulders with Bryan Adams next month.

Jonathan says: "Our job is simple. All we want to do is make sure that people leave safely with smiles on their faces."

It can take 12 months to ensure that that happens.

Jonathan was a former carpenter in Wolverhampton and 25 years ago he moved into health and safety, forming his own company, Online Safety Solutions Ltd. Today, he travels the world, stopping off in North America, the Middle East, Europe and Asia, advising on event safety at everything from the F1 Grand Prix in Dubai to gigs featuring Jools Holland, Sugababes, Status Quo, Kathryn Jenkins, Bellowhead and Frankie Valli.

He's dealt with fatalities and heart attacks and helped save lives during a remarkable career. He's rubbed shoulders with some of music's biggest names, shared a beer with rock stars and been bought an after-show curry by household names.

"I love what I do," he says. "It's great fun.

"But there's a lot involved. We assess all the legal requirements.

"We start from square one. Any event that has to go on has to be justified by local Safety Advisory Groups, which comprise police, fire and local authorities. They have to be sure that the organisers know what they are doing.

"Once we have received SAG approval, we have to look at all aspects of a rock festival. We look at the site, the set-up, the build and the construction. We ensure the arena is built safely and during the event we do anything from monitoring evaluation and risk to making sure the sound levels are within statutory limits. We constantly watch out for the weather, monitoring the MET forecast and making sure there is no risk of electrical storms. We have evacuation strategies, we look at blue light routes in case of a 999 incident and we look at the potential for crush injuries, which are often influenced by the demographic of the audience."

When Jonathan worked with McFly, for instance, the risk of crush injuries was far greater than it might have been for a gig by, say, Paul Weller. "The audience is 14-17 and predominantly female. The fans tend to be hysterical and at risk of fainting, so the crush injury risk is high."

Jonathan is fully conversant with the relevant legal requirements for health and safety at events. He uses the Purple Guide, which prescribes the number of medics required at a gig. "When it comes to medical cover, we have a saying that one is none and two is one. What I mean by that is simple. If you have one paramedic treating a casualty and he or she is the only person on site, you can't run the event because effectively you have no medical cover. If you have a heart attack, that can take a paramedic out for two, two-and-a-half hours."

Jonathan has faced a number of extreme situations during his career, including a death at a Status Quo concert where a man suffered a heart attack and died in front of his 10-year-old son. The casualty was in the toilets and could not be saved.

"We spend hours with the police after incidents like that. It was at the Pageant of Power, where Status Quo were playing. I had to put the body in the private ambulance with a friend who is a medic. We tried to revive him but we couldn't get him back."

There are numerous other risk factors to consider. Jonathan looks at the potential for structures collapsing and also at the risk of vast marquees turning into 'sails'. "'Sailing' is a real risk. If you get uplift or updraft on a marquee, it's a massive issue. You can have a gust of wind that can turn these structures into a vast sail."

See also on Native Monster:

• Ten alternative festivals if you haven't got a Glastonbury ticket

• Top 10 festival dos and don'ts

In the final analysis, it's a good day at the office when nothing happens and fans leave with a smile on their face. "Seeing people walk away smiling is great. We spend three, six or 12 months working on these events – it's not down to luck that people are safe on a day.

"The key to success is having a strong team. Everybody has to have the same mind set. There has to be collective thought as a team.

"The layout of the site is really important. You don't want to have the stage facing the wrong way, for instance. If you've got it in front of the sun, for instance, you're going to get 20,000 people glaring into the sunshine having a miserable afternoon because they're squinting to see the stage.

"But it's great fun. The performers are usually really humble. It's great fun hanging out with Paul Weller. Simon Cowell was really nice. Boy George was a laugh. Jools Holland bought me a curry and McFly got my daughters to retune their guitars. There's no other job in the world where that stuff happens."

Jonathan Smith's debut book, The Beginner's Guide To Organising an Event, will be published in September.