Chris Soliz is a Performing Arts Readiness (PAR) project consultant and the current Assistant Chief of Technical Services for the US Navy Region Japan Fire & Emergency Services. After a successful 26 year career as a firefighter and emergency management professional, he formed Bridgeway Consulting to help non-profit organizations protect what they care about: patrons, staff, facilities, and property. Soliz has worked with government, private, and non-profit organizations to develop plans, command large-scale emergencies, manage special events, and coordinate resource management. He holds a Master’s Degree in Emergency Services Management, teaches for Western Carolina University’s Emergency and Disaster Management Program, is credentialed as an Incident Commander for North Carolina’s Incident Management Team, and has lead the Emergency Services Department for a jurisdiction with a population of 140,000. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Directors for the Family Crisis Council; a non-profit organization whose mission is to empower victims of sexual assault and domestic violence to take back their lives.

Show notes go in chronological order, and timestamps are approximate.

Chris mentions the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which not only continually reviews and updates their codes and standards but makes planning resources publicly available.

Idea alert! Chris describes using emergency mass warning notification systems at large events to also share more general notifications in support of health and wellness. Attendees can subscribe via a QR code. He and Jessica discuss a smattering of other potential technology solutions to improve the immediacy of communications to event attendees, including how to keep people with disabilities as safe as everyone else in the population.

Jessica Wallach: “At its heart, disaster preparedness is getting people from across emergency management and arts and culture to know one another and practice these skills.”

Around 27:00, Chris tells us about Community Risk Reduction– A growing idea within the fire community to tailor outreach and training activities to risk factors specific to that community. Learn more about Community Risk Reduction, or how the increase in climate-related disasters underscores the importance of community risk reduction (via NFPA). 

Don’t miss Chris’s reflections around 29:49 for the links across mental health resiliency, cultural heritage, and well-being, including takeaways specifically involving the performing arts.

One of the best things any community can do is get to know their emergency responders before the emergency. With that in mind, around 32:38, learn the quickest ways to get firefighters to your event! Spoiler alert: food is one of them 🙂

36:22

Egress: Keep areas clear, but where is the ultimate gathering place these paths lead to? Chris tells us about what he calls “the [single] biggest thing” for event producers to consider. This connects with the idea of Zone X that Kelly Hubbard spoke with us about in Episode 3.

Later on…

Chris Soliz reflects on the importance of drills and building muscle memory: “Invest your time in your staff and volunteers to teach them to use the safety features of the building you’re inside or the resources if you’re outside. […] There’s all kinds of good technology out there, but unless you practice it, it’s just sitting there.”

One idea behind the Art of Mass Gatherings is that festivals and events are wonderful opportunities for communities to learn, practice, and continually improve their emergency preparedness. Chris discusses a few examples of kinds of training that improve emergency outcomes. FEMA has a refresher to keep the emergency management lingo straight:

• Scenario planning – Discussing a possible incident, exchanging ideas, and determining a course of action
• Drill – Hands-on training in one element of a safety response plan, for example, following a certain protocol (fire evacuation) or using a particular piece of equipment.
• Full-scale exercise – Simulates a real event as closely as possible, involving multiple response organizations and testing multiple elements of a plan.

Idea alert! Earthquake preparedness is part of everyday reality in Japan, where Chris is currently stationed. Did you know that some vending machines in Japan possess a secret compartment that holds emergency supplies like water and protein bars in the event people have to shelter in place for long periods?

MUSIC (“Fairly Natural” By The Reals)

Our host, Matthew Kowal:

Welcome to the Art of Mass Gatherings podcast for conversations and insights at the nexus of festivals and disaster preparedness. Since 2017, my co-hosts and I have convened symposiums around the US and Puerto Rico and met some truly inspiring thinkers and doers. This podcast transcends traditional event management, exploring how arts and emergency professionals can inform each other to develop diverse and savvy leadership to expand what we mean by accessible. From temporary and improvised innovations, to permanent infrastructure optimizations, we can learn through the best of times to survive and thrive in the hardest times. I’m Matt Kowal, co -founder of Majestic Collaborations. Our mission is to advance and enhance the power of gatherings. By organizing hundreds of events for over a million attendees, we have cultivated a distinctive approach that focuses on creating a lasting positive impact. We refer to this approach as the four pillars of safety, sustainability, accessibility, and community engagement.

There’s lots of advocates dedicated to each of these topics individually, but we explore them collectively with my co -hosts and other topic experts. We’re grateful for the unwavering support from Performing Arts Readiness, whose dedication to venue preparedness has been crucial for numerous organizations. Join us in this exploration and become an active part of our conversation by sharing your insights directly in the Spotify player. Thanks for being here. Now let’s get into it.

The following is a boost for a podcast from an allied organization in an act of mutual aid. We love mutual aid agreements and we love Arts. Work. Life., the award -winning podcast about what it’s like to work in the performing arts, featuring stories from artists and art workers like you behind the scenes and up close. The podcast is produced by APAP, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, with support of the Wallace Foundation. They are the national service advocacy and membership organization, for the live performing arts field. APAP is dedicated to developing and supporting a robust performing arts presenting, booking, and touring industry for the professionals who work within it. Arts, work, life. Just launched its third season and will be dropping episodes all summer. Don’t miss 20 bold untold stories that will take you behind the curtain of the performing arts industry, whether about failure and heartbreak or triumph and success. Each story reveals an important truth from the perspective of professionals working in live arts and entertainment. We encourage you to check out arts, work, life on your favorite podcast app and maybe even pitch your story to them for season four.

MUSIC (“Fairly Natural” By The Reals)

Matthew Kowal

I have a couple of great co -hosts with me today, Tom Clarison from Performing Arts Readiness, who is also our partner in sponsoring this podcast, and Jessica Wallach  from Majestic Collaborations, and we have Chris Soliz, who’s going to be our guest today. This is our fire safety episode. Chris Soliz is the Performing Arts Readiness Project Consultant who teaches classes on fire safety. He’s also the Assistant Chief for Training for the US Navy Fire in the Japan region. He’s joining us super early in the morning. Thanks for being here, Chris. And we’ll talk about your career a little bit more, but checking in with you is, do you have coffee on board this morning, Chris?

Chris Soliz

I have plenty of coffee ready to go.

Matthew Kowal

After a successful 26 -year career as a firefighter and emergency management professional, Chris has formed Bridgeway Consulting to help nonprofit organizations protect what they care about, patrons, staff, facilities, and property. Chris has worked with government, private, and nonprofit organizations to develop plans, command large -scale emergencies, manage special events, and coordinate resource management. He holds a master’s degree in emergency services management and has taught for Western Carolina’s universities emergency and disaster management program. He’s credentialed as an incident commander for North Carolina’s incident management team and has led the emergency services department for a jurisdiction with a population of 140,000.

He’s also served as the on the board of directors for the Family Crisis Council, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower victims of sexual assault and domestic violence to take back their lives. We’re so excited to have you here. Tom Clareson , would you tell us a little bit about Performing Arts Readiness and what good fortune you’ve had to find Chris Soliz to work with you?

Tom Clareson  

Oh, definitely. With Performing Arts Readiness, we offer a series of webinars on about 20 different topics. They’re both offered live online. And then we have recorded versions. And Chris, instead of talking early in the morning, does late night sessions with us in order to do some of those classes on fire safety and fire management and planning. And I was just able to find Chris through a number of people suggesting him and we were able to get him to teach classes with PAR. And then he also participated in some of the work that was done at the Art of Mass Gathering session that was held in North Carolina at first. So Chris has really covered a lot of information and activities for us and worked with us on a ton of different events. So I’m really glad to be able to talk to him a little bit more here today.

Matthew Kowal  

Me too. And before we have Jessica Wallach  start off some great questions for Chris. Chris, maybe walk us down memory lane a little bit about when we first met in Greensboro at the Art of Mass gatherings and the work you did with Folk Alliance International and Jenny Filippetti on that emergency planning for that organization. What did you think? I’m picturing you in an orange vest showing people the power at the Greensboro main stage, we threw you right in, what struck you about it when you first started working with us?

Chris Soliz  

Oh, well, first, thanks. I’m so happy to be here. It’s good to hear everybody again. I really enjoy working with PAR and with Matt at Majestic Collaborations. It’s been a pretty fun time so far, and I want to do tons more. So, you know, I come from kind of this little bit of a rigid world where there’s lots of checklists and you have to do this and that. And so getting involved with the Art of Mass Gatherings event in Greensboro, I think, which is our first event together, that was really fun because it was kind of more of a relaxed conversation and it was just a great way to talk about all these safety and preparedness elements in just a really fun environment. So that was, that was fun walking around with everybody and just kind of sharing ideas and pointing different things out and learning from, from each other. So that was kind of my, my first impression of the, of that event. Super great. And then.

Chris Soliz 

We got a chance to work on the Folk Alliance International Conference. And we did a little bit more of the traditional kind of planning pieces for their safety plan. Definitely a challenge. When you get so many people together, there’s a lot of things to consider. And I think the name of the game there is collaboration. And I think that was really successful. And we brought a lot of things together to, and I think that that event came off really well and everybody was really well prepared for whatever came up. So yeah, it’s been a great time so far.

Matthew Kowal 

That Folk Alliance Festival is quite a weird one, right? They take a hotel and transform several floors into all of these temporary performance spaces in the hotel rooms. I think as a fire manager, you were probably like, well, what are we doing? Okay.

Chris Soliz 

It is, it is such a different, um, you know, traditional conferences are not set up that way. Again, you know, it’s the, the rigid meets the, the creative. And that’s kind of what, what I intended with, you know, naming our, my, uh, company Bridgeway. Cause I want to bring that, uh, that I want to be a bridge between that technical side of things and, and what, uh, everybody in the creative communities do to bring all these great solutions. So definitely unique. Had me freaking out a little bit at times like, you know, hey, that’s not how it’s done. But I think again, you know, collaborations, we did a lot of work with local responders, just talked with them, coordinated with them, and made each other, I guess, just aware of each other’s concerns. And in the end came up with great solutions. So everybody was happy, but it was just a mess matter of talking to each other and kind of flushing out those, those different perspectives. So anything can be done. Um, you just have to talk.

Matthew Kowal  

You definitely got me thinking a lot about that bridgeway between lights and sirens folks and arts and cultural people and how what we’ve gotten common and then also sort of like the cultural differences that those folks have, what we have to learn from each other. For the Folk Alliance International, when I was there one year, they had a fire alarm go off. I can’t remember why it happened, but all of a sudden there’s a thousand people in the hallways of the…

Matthew Kowal  

New Orleans hotel and a couple of people who were in wheelchairs. We were just luckily resolved, but for sure a moment where everything got very real. This makes me think of our co -host Jessica Wallach here who spent time thinking about this. And Jessica Wallach  works with Majestic Collaborations as accessibility specialist. She’s done neat work for the Justice Department on testing accessible design.

Matthew Kowal  

Jessica Wallach  welcome to the conversation. What else should we know about you? And do you want to jump in with hearing what Chris thinks about some great ideas or questions that you have?

Jessica Wallach  

I just want to jump in, but I will introduce myself first. My name is Jessica Wallach  Wallach. I am the lead accessibility officer for majestic collaboration. So I do a lot of seeking out local experts when we go and do our symposiums to come and talk and share disability and accessibility wisdom are on accessibility, festivals and emergency planning. I’ve been doing accessibility work for most of my life for about 40 years now. As Matt said, I used to work for the Department of Justice and there were housing and civil enforcement section and I would go around the country testing to see if housing was accessible.

So I’m gonna jump in and FAI is such a good place to start, right? And what happens when there’s a fire alarm and you have folks in the building with disabilities? And I wanna start from like, how are we supposed to know what we’re supposed to even do? Like, movie theaters are really good about telling you what you’re supposed to do, but I don’t feel like many other events give that information. So can you, Chris, take us from information all the way through to all the different options you have employed to keep people with disabilities equally as safe as everybody else in the population?

Chris Soliz 

Yeah, sure. That’s a great question because the answer, from my point of view, the answer is the same for anybody, for everybody. And it’s all about how to, how to get out, how to escape if, if need be. So, you know, just be aware from the moment you walk into a lobby, the moment you enter the building, just be aware of the different exit signs that are around. And of course you can ask the staff about any, you know, if you’re selecting a room, maybe you want to ask for something closer to an exit, you know, whatever makes you feel comfortable, the lobby exit or a side exit, whatever it is. And there’s actually some organizations, some hotels actually have what’s known as areas of refuge, where anybody with access and functional needs can exit the building and the fire department has pre -planned that area and they know to go look at that area and be able to assist whoever is located there. That’s a designated area for any unique needs that are around. Otherwise, I would say just you know, ask the management staff or the front desk staff there, you know, to make sure that you’re aware of all the exits and it’s their job to keep all those exits clear and operational and all that kind of thing. So it’s, it’s all about situational awareness, I guess. So it’s the same answer for anybody. Definitely.

Jessica Wallach  

Can you talk a little bit about the history of these refuge spaces and have you been around long enough to know when they got started and how that has worked out for people?

Chris Soliz 

You know, I don’t, I don’t know when they actually became a requirement. Um, and for some cities, it’s, it’s different cities have different requirements. So it might not be the same in, in all places. Um, but. You know, all of the, in, in our world and the fire safety world, all of our standards and recommendations come from the national fire protection association and they take all of the codes and standards that we follow and they’re continually being updated. I think they’re on a five -year cycle or something like that, but they’re being updated by these different committees, which these committees are made up of various professionals. Maybe they’re engineers, fire safety professionals, sometimes emergency managers, definitely members of the community.

They always open these things up for public comment before they go through the work or to include in the work of updating. And then they publish new codes and standards. So Areas of Refuge, I think, came about just in that update process. And they always take into account some real world events that have happened or maybe some observations that somebody has made. So not sure of the date and time, but that’s… I think how it came about, the process anyway.

Jessica Wallach  

So in the disability community, we don’t like this. It feels like the emergency folks are telling us to sit and wait someplace until we get help. Right? And we know that in 9/11 [the terrorist attacks of September 11th on the World Trade Center], folks who sat and waited in the areas of refuge didn’t get out, and those who figured out how to get out on their own survived. Right? That’s kind of the classic thing. And I think a lot about that in our festivals and in our disaster planning, right? Like how do we have multiple plans to work? And why I wanted the history is my assumption is that way of handling emergencies happened way before there were cell phones, and way before we had the technology we have today. So I’m wondering if you know of other strategies, communities or festivals or events are employing to make sure that everybody gets out safely who might have a functional need or a disability.

Chris Soliz  

Yeah, no, that’s a great observation about the technology because you’re right, a lot of emergency plans are based in ways that used to be. And I think by nature of just very large organizations, they’re slow to adopt kind of the new ways. And sometimes it’s just that a large organization is hard. It’s kind of like, you know, the old saying turning a battleship, right? It takes a long time. But definitely there are tools out there that are extremely useful. I think my, what might be a great idea for event coordinators– again, I just harp on this collaboration element, and you know, maybe for event managers to be the voice, for their patrons and discuss those options with the emergency responders and say, hey, we’ve got a great solution to know when somebody needs assistance so that we can be a little bit more nimble with that stuff. So there are some technology solutions out there. You know, I rely heavily in what I do with using some GIS systems. And there are some tools out there where somebody might be able to scan a QR code that’s hanging on a post somewhere, which would take them to this app that’s reporting. And you push a button to request assistance, kind of like the blue telephones that are around that can call the police, but now it’s mobile. And so there are those solutions out there, but we need to figure out how to make those a standard practice everywhere. But yeah, that’s a great piece.

Jessica Wallach   

Exactly what I’ve been thinking about, right? We have at larger events more and more an accessibility crew and it would make sense to me that you could check in with the accessibility director, give them your phone number, opt into an app which would track you.

And if there was an event coming, especially a weather event, you could select being notified early so you could leave early, right?

Chris Soliz 

Right, yeah. You know.

Jessica Wallach   

And or you could say, hey, here’s where I am by pressing a button like you said, like a QR code. Tell me the best way out of here. And I know at some point we might shut down a lot of the cell phone technology and a really big event and a big disaster. But there’s often some time in between those moments, right? between when we’re going to shut down communications that you could have some people getting people out instead of sheltering in place and waiting until people could come. I’ve been like dying to ask if this is actually a doable solution. So I’m glad you came with a similar solution.

Chris Soliz 

Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I’m also reminded about there are in all of our communities, most communities. So speaking on the local government side in the emergency management offices, they have a responsibility for mass warning and notification. So I would. And when I was in North Carolina working with local government, we started using our system.

Chris Soliz  

Uh, not only for storms and, um, you know, large fires or public safety, you know, shelter in place kind of messages, but we had a couple of, uh, festivals. Um, Oh, I think there was even like a hundred thousand people coming into a small area. And we started using our mass warning notification system to push out just general notifications for the day. You know, the temperature is rising, be careful.

Chris Soliz 

You know, there’s various, various things and same thing. We put a QR code up on a lamp post to subscribe to the notifications. And that I think in that instance, we chose one way notifications, but two way interactive are definitely possible with the technology out there. So emergency management agencies are using some of these things. But you know, it just varies. And again, the conversations are essential so that we can encourage them to.

Chris Soliz  

Kind of tailor a solution for the event and what needs there are. Yeah. I often think about our community engagement piece, right, of the four pillars. And I think how do we get emergency planners and folks with disabilities in the same room, in the same community, so that people actually know each other ahead of time? Right? Because that’s the ideal is to know.

Jessica Wallach 

What functional needs there are out there. Right? And they know we have registries and all that, but like I think if people knew each other in a community, that might be the best practice.

Chris Soliz 

I completely agree, completely agree. Our responder community, I think a lot of people are surprised also are one of our main missions in fire service, especially these days is customer service. And so many agencies are looking to engage with the community. So they’re open. I think, you know, they continually seek out opportunities.

Matthew Kowal 

Jessica Wallach, yeah, keep going. I was going to ask you to, well, keep going after this too with talk to Chris about Boston’s emergency management and public health people using that.

Chris Soliz 

But on the other hand, all you need to do is go knock on the door and they’ll probably have a cup of coffee waiting for you. So yeah, they’re ready.

Jessica Wallach   

Oh, I love this. I think, as I just said, I’m this big proponent of figuring out how to build relationships that are needed in disaster way before disaster happens. And when we were in Boston doing BAMS Fest, one of the public health officers talked about how local block parties so that people get to know their neighbors so that they can help each other out in an emergency. That it was a part of their emergency strategy, right, to back block parties. And I love that idea and I’m like, and did you invite your local fire and emergency folks to come hang out? Right? Because that’s what I feel like means to happen. And that’s why beloved community festivals can be such an anchor and preparatory place for disaster preparedness. Right? Because at the heart, it’s about getting people to know one another as well as practicing all these skills.

 Chris Soliz 

So, well, you remind me of–it’s so interesting and this is why I really like this kind of intersection of responders and the creative community is because there are so many similar goals. And just like you say, if we can sit down and hang out with each other beforehand, so many of those ideas will come out and everybody will be better off. So one of those goals in the fire community is known as community risk reduction. So this is a big push, a big campaign throughout the industry. And the idea is, you know, fire departments have grown up a little bit. So where in the past, maybe our fire prevention programs have been geared towards, oh, say, you know, fire alarm drills at a building, or maybe we go to schools and hand out coloring books and talk with them about, you know, stop, drop and roll. Well, that’s one aspect, but community risk reduction is kind of this whole community approach.

So can we teach people CPR? Can we teach them how to be safe in all various aspects of their life and take that whole community idea to reducing risk overall? And so that applies, you know, even when we’re talking about active violence situations, the stop the bleed classes, all sorts of things. So fire prevention is kind of where that program lives, but it’s kind of grown into this all encapsulating risk reduction idea. So always looking for partners on how to grow that out even more. 

Jessica Wallach   

I feel like this leads really nicely into my last question and that is it seems like prior management is bold thinking people is thinking about bodies in places, right? And making sure that bodies have the least amount of harm done to them before, during, and after a fire. So I was gonna ask you generally to talk about how you think about bodies in this ecosystem.   Something around disability in there too, but it’s like at the base, it’s about thinking about bodies and getting them through disaster as whole as possible and what might be useful tips there.

Chris Soliz 

Well, you know, that’s interesting. And actually that’s similar, I think, to what we talk about with organizations as a whole. And we talk about that whole recovery idea. So, I think education in the first place, how to make yourself as safe as possible to start with. Prevention is the best tool that we can ever hope for. But then also, FEMA has this whole idea of families and individuals being prepared for 72 hours. So whatever that looks like until responders come or until FEMA comes into the area in a large scale thing. You know, so some of that self -sufficiency, but then, you know, I think as far as the, this is something that I’ve tried to do a little bit of reading about and research on, and there’s just so much out there is the mental health resiliency. And one of the things that keeps coming up is the importance of cultural heritage, and especially in this context that we’re talking about today, performing arts. So the sooner that we can get back to something comfortable and familiar, something from our community, where we can all gather, whether it’s in some celebration or some music festival or something.

That’s how we come together, together, you know, relying on our, on our heritage and our community to, to pull us through and to help our mental health, I guess, recovery profile. If, if there’s such a thing, maybe I just made up a word, I don’t know. So yeah, I think that’s, that’s the whole thing. Preparedness on the firsthand, but rely on your community also.

Tom Clareson   

And Chris This is Tom. I was thinking you’re talking about this whole idea of community preparedness and community recovery. And there are a number of ways that we can work into that. I worked in Philadelphia for about five years. And one of the things that I saw that was kind of amazing was that they had some rules in the city there where they had to have someone from the fire department come into buildings and situations that had a large number of people per day per week per year and they would do fire vulnerability visits. So taking a look at how the building was built and how it was being used and is there vulnerability there. So that was a way that the fire department got into the community and started working with people just like you were talking about earlier. And then on the more fun side, you know, you’ve been talking about how can we do this in a way that yes, it’s serious, but can we do it where it’s a mix with arts, performing arts and culture. One of the things that I also heard about in Philadelphia was the fire and police departments getting a night at the museum at one of the museums there, including they were rappelling from the third floor down to the first floor on the walls of the museum in order to be able to practice in case they needed to do that in real life. So if you had any other good examples of some of this community preparedness that you’re thinking about. I’d love to hear that and then maybe talk about some of the community recovery things as well.

Chris Soliz 

So, so Tom, that’s, that’s really funny. So I’ll tell you the quickest ways to get your fire department out to your event. Firefighters love food. So that’s, that’s a plus. And anytime they get to break out their, their fancy toys and equipment and they get to do some repelling and hang off buildings and stuff. Well, that’s just, now that’s a guarantee they’re on the way.

Tom Clareson   

I love that. Good deal.

Chris Soliz  

Yeah, so those are great examples of just different kind of creative ways to just get to know anybody. So I think that a chance to I don’t know, maybe the term would be, you know, manage expectations. So any chance that we can get people together and people can actually see what the fire department can actually do what something actually looks like, then they understand because sometimes people have an idea in their head of how the fire department can help them. And maybe in reality, that’s not necessarily the case. And vice versa, maybe the fire department thinks that they have the best approach with handling a situation when maybe there are perspectives and ideas of an event or an organization that they haven’t taken into account yet. So any chance that we get to demonstrate each other’s, I guess, capabilities and ideas that that would be the best thing. So, you know, I think it all kind of starts with that that cup of coffee and getting around a table and and just kind of brainstorming a little bit. That’s probably the best advice that I can give.

Tom Clareson   

And I really like that. And I think when I first saw you in action, which was at the Greensboro Art of Mass Gatherings, it was on the set up day for the North Carolina Folk Festival that was being held in Greensboro. And we took a much different sort of backstage visit than I had ever been on before because we were looking backstage, yes, at how things were set up, but also at some of the safety issues and the fire issues. And just to put it in perspective, what are the kinds of things you look at when you’re going to either a theater or to a festival set up that people might hear on this podcast and then be able to say, oh, I’m going to look at that next time I have to go out and be working on this type of thing?

Chris Soliz  

Yeah, sure, sure. So when we were out there, I got to walk with a group and we were talking specifically about safety, just around stages and in general, you know, while you’re walking around different areas of the event. And what I would say is you don’t need to be an expert in safety. What you really need to do is just pay attention to your instinct because if something looks unsafe, if something catches your eye, then it’s worth a question. And maybe it’s okay, but we should point that out to some people that are the experts. So on stages and everything, kind of take this 360 approach. Look up at the rigging and lighting that’s above, and then look down at things that might trip people or get in the way of of things and just look all around. 

And I think the biggest focus, whether you’re inside a building or outside in a park, is for the event coordinators and anybody that’s working really to focus on the egress aspects. How are people gonna escape or exit that area? And then not only to keep those pathways clear, but also consider Where do those pathways lead? So is there a good enough area, a safe enough area for people to, um, to end up in? So the egress path and then the, the, um, the gathering place on the other side is, is also important to consider. So it’s kind of like that whole 360 approach. So look, you know, look small, but then expand your vision you know, 360 and then carry it all the way out to that gathering place. So I think that’s maybe a good thing for some safety folks to just keep in mind.

Matthew Kowal 

I have a friend, Jessica Wallach– wait, she’s the other podcast co-host today! 🙂 She has a great quote. She says, it’s about so much more than getting people in the door. And lately, I think a lot of organizations are seeing these gaps of being accessible and doing good community engagement. So they’re saying, hey, come one, come all, and they get them in the door, but hadn’t really thought of that out. Jessica Wallach , how else do you think that gets real? And how should we You know, take this moment to like Chris is saying, I also think of it like looking at something with soft eyes before you’re in the middle of the hot situation to be able to see these sorts of things, but, but doing things without people who have that functional need, it’s pretty hard to, to plan for folks. If you haven’t invited them to the table to be part of it. What else, so far as the refuge thing was that I’m really glad we got a chance to talk about those things evolving and the turning around the battleship a little bit. One of the things I’ve seen, Chris, come up more is those escape devices that you keep in a closet that pop out and you can get somebody downstairs quickly who might be in a mobility device and just, you what I like almost everything about them except that when I look at them and think about people using those for the first time without ever practicing how to get, you know, a big person on to this, it’s kind of almost like a furniture dolly for people, strapping somebody in and getting them down a bunch of flights of stairs. You sure wouldn’t want to be trying to learn all of that with the alarms going off, which I guess gets us into the whole topic of doing good drills and thinking of ways to get muscle memory built for when you’re in the moment. What have been some lessons learned for you about making good drills and getting staff savvy about what to do?

Chris Soliz  

Yeah, that’s that you’re right on target. It’s so it’s great to have these pieces of equipment, but unless we know how to use them, you know, then it’s pretty difficult. So what I, what I like to talk to people about is, you know, the most important piece of equipment, if you will, is, is your staff. So you just have to invest your time in  your staff and your volunteers and teach them actually how to use the safety features of the building if you’re inside or of the resources if you’re outside. So I think there’s a couple of kind of unique things that could even be understanding how to operate the or interpret the fire alarm panel inside of a building.

And so you know, definitely there’s all kinds of good technology out there, but unless we practice it, then it, it’s just kind of, uh, sitting there for us. So I think one of the things that we do, um, in the responder community is, is take little, little bites at a time for training and learning how to do things. So, you know, we’ll, we’ll start off with a tabletop exercise and just kind of talk through a scenario and what each other would do and, and, you know, throw some maps up on a wall or, uh, you know, bring out the checklist, something like that. But then the next step is what we would call a functional exercise where we just take one, one piece of that, uh, big, uh, event that we’re talking about that we’re trying to solve. And, you know, maybe that functional exercise is spend two or three hours practicing. Like you said, that piece of equipment that we use  to carry people, and then how do we take that, you know, from beginning all the way to the end. Um, and then maybe we have a couple of those things and then we end up with a full scale exercise where all the different pieces and players come together and do their part. And, um, so it’s kind of like, I guess it’s kind of like a performance, right? They’ll do little bits of rehearsals here and there, and then the whole big thing comes together. Now those full scale exercises, they could take one or even two years to plan and coordinate and practice for. And that’s just fine because all along the way you’re practicing some skills and you’re getting to know all of your equipment and your resources. So that’s kind of how we shape the training programs on our side.

Tom Clareson   

And Chris, one of the things that I’ve been really interested in, we met and first worked together when you were in North Carolina. Now you’re working in Japan and you’re doing, you’re focusing on this training on an everyday basis. Can you talk about, you know, how, whatever you can talk about, about your job and then talk about how you build some of these exercises up and what you think are some of the most worthwhile types of exercises.

Chris Soliz 

Oh, geez. Um, that is a, that is a wide question. So in Japan, which is amazing, by the way, I wish that everybody could come out and, and just tour around. What an amazing country and the people are so friendly and welcoming. We’re having a blast and looking forward to some more time out here. So you know, being that Japan is a large island, the natural hazards wise, the biggest consideration is tsunamis, which are hurricanes in the States. 

And so the preparedness level– and earthquakes too, by the way. So the preparedness level in Japan is just immense. From the time, you know, kids are in elementary school they’re learning about you know how to how to be safe where to go what different resources there are and You know so if you look up anything on YouTube about Japan you’re gonna come across videos of These amazing vending machines the vendors here you can get anything you you ever want but a cool thing is there are some vending machines that actually have this little secret compartment and they hold emergency supplies in these vending machines. The shop owners, in case of need, they will open up and there are bottles of water and little protein bars, snack bars to keep you going for a little while. So the thought behind preparedness is amazing. And for me, I…

Tom Clareson   

Oh my gosh.

Chris Soliz

man, I nerd out on that. That’s an amazing thing. So yeah, so one of the biggest things that we’ve practiced is earthquake response. And some of our firefighters go out and practice with the city fire departments on that technical rescue piece. And so it does take a lot of practice because… Even though we’re in Japan, we’re still on a, uh, on a military installation and we still do things kind of the American way with our, with our procedures and, and our, you know, requirements, our standards. So going off the off base to work with local city guys is, is really important because we just have to match up, you know, expectations and how we work together and different, you know, radio procedures and.

You know, when we say this, this is what we mean. And, um, so those are, we spent a lot of time on that functional exercise piece. Uh, and, and so that’s, that’s really fun. And it’s, it’s amazing. Best thing I like about being a firefighter is firefighters are the same everywhere. Um, just welcoming and everybody it’s the, it’s a common language. So it doesn’t mean it spans across the language barriers for sure. Yeah. So, so mostly it’s focused on a lot of natural hazards and how to work well together. That’s the name of the game.

Tom Clareson  

Okay. And Chris, when you’re working on this kind of thing, one of the areas that you started to be a leader in in the US, and I think you’re carrying it over to your work in Japan, is the idea of asset mapping. And can you talk a little bit, especially how asset mapping for cultural institutions, for arts institutions works and why it’s helpful to emergency managers?

Chris Soliz  

Oh yeah, sure. The mapping function is like, this is my newest passion in the last several years. I’ve just really gotten heavy into the GIS with geographic information systems. So maps and data are a great foundation for any of our planning. But I also strongly, strongly believe that we have to add, Common sense, you can’t just be dominated by the data. You have to also use common sense and your own knowledge to apply that data and make sure that makes sense for what you’re doing. But if you use these GIS systems, kind of with a click of the button, you can understand the demographics of your area. You can have live traffic maps so that…

Chris Soliz  

If you need to, you can plan escape routes. There’s just so much information. You can model different weather events or get live weather maps for your particular area. And probably one of the best thing, I keep going back to this collaboration thing, there’s opportunities for sharing, especially event. kind of map. So if your local responder community is willing and available, you can see each other’s resources on one map. So as we say, we like to develop a common operating picture, one, one screen, one display so that everybody can see the same information. And that’s, that’s hugely useful when you’re trying to coordinate something, but everybody has their own unique interests, all the different stakeholders. So if you can do that, then GIS is the way to go. I’m definitely a proponent. I love it.

Tom Clareson   

Good, well, I think that one of the things that I wanted to mention was that a lot of the things that we’ve been talking about from asset mapping to sort of community -based work all lead into the work that Matthew has started with Majestic on the Art of Mass Gatherings activities and festival safety activities. So I wanted to see if Matt, you probably have a number of ideas and questions you want to throw in as well.

Matthew Kowal 

Ooh, well, for sure. And a lot of them are memories of like what I learned with Chris when Jenny Filipetti and I worked on our safety plan with Folk Alliance and Thomas talking about there’s these different ways that people can employ performing our readiness grants to do stuff with their organization and they can take a free webinar. They can apply for a safety planning consultation for their facility.

Then there’s these real, you know, in our wheelhouse, there’s event audits where we’ll come in and get a team of stakeholders to look at the roses and thorns of what’s going good and what could be better in the four pillars of the safety, sustainability, accessibility, community engagement. And then there’s the Art of Mass Gathering symposiums where we bring smart folks like Chris and in there to talk about how they see things and I think Chris was alluding to this before of like when you’re a hammer the whole world can look like a nail and if your background might be event safety or event sustainability or accessibility or you’re a fire person or you know it’s a neat time in these cultural events to break down some barriers of enjoy food together listen to music and sort of compare notes.

Chris, Tom was talking about asset mapping. And the other thing that I’ve learned from you a lot is risk mapping. And the way that you have put together a situational awareness of: what are the most likely things that would be impacting your venue? And then that way you can prioritize what you’re gonna put resources into. Because we’re always limited with time and money. And so how are we gonna allocate our resources and planning and I think I’ll mention that I learned a lot from Leah Hamilton at University of Kentucky. One of the way she set up like a dichotomy is like, tends to be that emergency managers think of things in terms of the probability of things happening. And a lot of times arts and cultural folks are real savvy with thinking about the possibilities of what could happen and sort of thinking creatively. And that when we put ourselves together, it’s a pretty good Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of those kinds of two modalities.   I love working with you, Chris, in that, from the beginning, when you’re saying, “let’s bring food and then you get the firefighters out, if they can play with their toys, you’re going to get the firefighters. Um, you and I both come from Southern Colorado and, uh, share a love of chili and we have to have a little party, um, and, and enjoy some of that food together. But, um, you’ve also got this interest that brought you into cultural value of that sort of culture to get people to rally around stuff, even, you know, these days it’s finding common ground is, wow, that’s just the best thing ever. What else about these sort of ideas of bringing folks together? I also wanted to catch you up on what happened in Boston. Boy, I wish you would have been there. There’s so many emergency management and public health people there. Usually it’s the opposite where we’re mostly arts and cultural and a little bit of EM.

We had a ton of those folks there doing Stop the Bleed, We Are the Help Till Help Arrives, we did a Narcan class in the middle of this festival. You know, there’s some folks who are like, why are you doing this heavy duty, worst case scenario stuff at a festival? And our point has been like, look, young folks, a lot of us were thinking about this when we go to mass gatherings, you can’t pretend like there’s not risks. 

And so,  maybe we can all relax a little bit more if you can see that people are thinking of how to keep each other safe instead of just kind of going to disassociate and rock out and then whatever. Sorry, I talked for quite a while, but I want to get into your brain about like the value of cultural stuff and where the future might be if we’re trying to build more capacity for communities for climate change and for big impacts to cities. And, you know, what can we do that’s on the bleeding edge of this stuff? What excites you?

Chris Soliz  

Um, oh man, that, that’s a, yeah, that’s a, that’s a wide, another wide, uh, topic there. Um, so I think that, you know, one of the reasons I, I really got hooked working with, uh, initially with Tom at performing arts readiness is I read this, um, I think Tom, you wrote the white paper, um, that I wrote, I think it was a long time ago. Um, and basically what caught my eye in, in that white paper, it said that, you know, you guys had done a survey or there had been a survey done and a huge number, like 53 % of, uh, performing arts organizations at that time had not written an emergency plan. Uh, and, and, and also if you did have a plan, only 20 % of those with a plan reviewed it and updated it, uh, every year. So that, that hooked me. 

That was, you know, so a lot of times fire departments and emergency management agencies, you know, they focus on, on the big stuff, those, those big flashy objects that are, you know, fighting for attention and, you large populations and, and that’s all good, but that’s a hugely important piece of our survival, I think. So my other, um, I guess, kind of passion is, is history and cultural heritage. So Matt, when you ask about, you know, how do we protect and sustain what should motivate us for the future? Well, I kind of see it as cultural heritage, which performing arts is that intangible cultural heritage, um, is essential to our mental Health is essential to our personal lives. 

And by the way, it’s a huge economic factor for our country. So we have to protect it. And part of my stump these days is trying to teach emergency management agencies why they should prioritize these things. And so that’s one thing that I’m trying to work more on is just making that widely known. So if I can work on that end, I think, you know, for everybody in the creative communities to just work on kind of meeting in the middle. And I’m a big fan of common language. So if we kind of speak in terms of, you know, emergency language, if there’s the national incident management system. There’s ICS, incident command system. So if we all, that’s the language that firefighters and EMS people use out there that police officers use also. So if some of the event coordinators can also speak some of that language, then we all have a better basis for understanding the needs. So I think that’s a good common ground to get to.

Matthew Kowal  

Mm hmm. Yeah, I think the edge with Artemis Gatherings has been like, if, and if these cultural organizations and venues don’t have a safety plan, there’s definitely a myriad of ways they could get to having a good plan. Probably one of the most common ways to get to a plan is somebody comes in as a consultant and they write it for you and then it might live in a drawer and the seas, you know, the the leadership knows what’s in there, kind of, but they’ve never had a chance to get it in their bones. And that’s still better than nothing, but there’s so much like a possibility for how to like do experiential learning, how to use another environment that kind of makes it all a little bit more real. 

And that, you know, these festivals are like a time when a city infrastructure is getting put through like a whole different usage. These streets are turned into something else. The water’s temporary. The power is temporary. The waste management is all made a new and we’re like, all right, this is really similar to what your city would be going through. If you lost a chunk of your infrastructure needed to improvise new stuff. And then it kind of, we’ve seen it inspire people to be like, Oh, this is kind of why I need a plan. It’s not just to kind of organize a sock drawer. It’s has this other sort of where it would need to be used. And after the pandemic, we’ve seen so many cases of public spaces getting used for a new purpose. And whether that’s a park or a street getting turned into an emergency vaccination or hospital site and all of that stuff, we think there’s so many ways that we can simulate disruption to this infrastructure and then start working backwards from there after people go, oh yeah, that’s necessary. 

I saw the other day in Denver, they set up a bunch of tents like for longer term housing for people experiencing homelessness. And they set up all of this electric system stuff that you would have seen like on a temporary construction site or in a building. And they didn’t use any of the really common electric systems that are made for outdoor temporary electrics where you’re like, man, you could have solved that problem with this temporary festival power system and it would have been safer, faster and cheaper, but nobody really had knew that world, that that’s the kind of stuff we set up all the time. So, huh, what else can we work on together for that sort of simulating highly disrupted systems without getting highly traumatized?

Chris Soliz 

Yeah, wow. Yeah. Well, so you mentioned alternative uses for some of these spaces. And at one point, you and I were talking, too, about turning a space that isn’t being used, maybe a large venue or whatever space we have, and talking with the city about using it as an emergency shelter.

So maybe it’s a longer term thing. Maybe it’s a warming shelter in the cold months in Denver. Maybe it’s, you know, in other climates, maybe it’s a cooling shelter. So there are so many different uses. And I think what’s interesting is, you know, if you, now turning a space into something like that requires a little bit of maybe a space slight retrofitting of the building because there are some requirements, but we need to understand and learn what those are. And we need to train some people to do that. But I think the other thing that that could open up is a potential alternative revenue potential for individuals. You teach them a new skill set and then they have an alternative to fall back on when their primary skill set isn’t working.

Matthew Kowal  

Oh brother, we love this. We’ve been so, we’re gonna probably have to do a whole other podcast on this because we, boy, this, well, and we’ve done so many different, since we’ve talked, we’ve proposed several workforce development schemes, and then we’ve worked with venues that have been turned into arts and cultural venues that have been turned into shelters and had some big roses and thorns after that. And,

Chris Soliz  

It’s a great idea.

Matthew Kowal 

Yeah, there’s there’s um, stay tuned. I think Jenny and I should get that going. For our next one of the next podcast, but Chris, it’s been so great talking with you. Tom and Jessica Wallach , anything we didn’t quite get to or Chris?

Chris Soliz  

Yeah, absolutely.

Tom Clareson  

I just had one quick question and it actually I think will bring a lot of things together and that is uh… Chris you had mentioned the idea that you saw that article you saw the study with the lack of plans and lack of practice and I wanted to say that you’ve written a number of articles and reports for PAR’s website on everything from fire safety, the fire risks from hand sanitizer and the one that I think is the most interesting and

As we are moving into that season when a lot more outdoor events are happening, you wrote a case study on the effects of smoke on outdoor experiences, outdoor concerts. And I’ll never forget this for the rest of my life. On the day that you sent it over to me to put up on the website at Blossom Music Center here in Northeastern Ohio, where I’m based.

They canceled the Alison Krauss and Robert Plant concert because there was so much smoke coming from the Canadian smoke and wildfires. So I think, do you have precautions that you would suggest to event producers as we move into the outdoor season that you would like to leave everyone with? 

Chris Soliz  

Well, boy, I remember that. I remember that too. And you know, what a, what an eye opener, a timely thing. And just, you know, this is why we need to, to, you know, be prepared and take action ahead of time. So as part of that, I thought, huh, there, there might be a GIS application here. And so with that article or with that case study,

I kind of threw together some, some mapping and just kind of made available mapping tool. And so situational awareness with this mapping tool, um, there’s, there’s all this information out there and I just love piecing it together. And so we can see actually, uh, on this map, current fires, uh, and where the, uh, smoke is drifting to. And on the map is, is Canadian, Canadian fires and us fires. And so as you have an event coming up in the outdoor spaces, you know, take that’s part of your planning, just continual situational awareness, whether you use that tool that’s available or any tool, just, you know, pay attention to the weather patterns because you never know what’s going to drift your way, I suppose. 

And I guess, I guess the other thing, the last thing that I’ll leave you with is dedicate time to training your, your crowd managers, uh, for, for the specific event plan. So, you know, we should give them training, general training in advance, but on the day of, you know, every event is unique and specific. And so making sure to do like a pre -brief, you know, before, uh, just get everybody together, huddle up before the event starts and just discuss, Hey, this is some weird weather going on today or You know, we hear that our attendance is going to be, you know, spiking today or whatever. Just make sure that everybody has some awareness for that specific day and specific needs. So I think those are two good things to keep in mind as we go into this season.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it’s been a blast. I really enjoy, uh, talking about these things. This is a great, you know, merging of a couple of different worlds here. I love it.

Matthew Kowal 

We’re so glad we’ve had you. All right, and this is going to be something you can learn more about if you wanna jump into one of the previously recorded fire safety classes that Chris has taught. You can check out some of those white papers at www.performingartsreadiness.org . And I’m sure we’ll help you get in contact with Chris if there’s anything you wanna talk with him more about. Thanks so much to the production team. Thanks for the co -hosts, Tom Clareson and Jessica Wallach.

Chris Soliz, we thank you so much and we encourage your listeners to check out the other podcasts available on our website and through social media and we look forward to the next episode. Thanks, Performing Art Readiness for the enduring support and partnership and we’ll catch you next time. Thank you.