The Challenge
Most of a DMC’s work never needs a safety partner. This was the exception.
Stories Ireland is a destination management company that creates once-in-a-lifetime events and luxury experiences across Ireland. We have worked with them before, and when they organised Luttrellstown Castle for two black-tie evenings for an international corporate client on a scale that warranted dedicated safety competence, they brought us in.
The brief was a high-end hospitality event for around 800 international guests per night. There was a welcome reception in the Orangery, a sit-down dinner in the main marquee, and an evening of entertainment, with guests bussed to and from their hotels. The kind of event where nothing should be visible to the guest except a flawless evening, and the safety operation has to be entirely in the background.
The Solution
We worked alongside Stories Ireland through planning and on both nights, providing the safety operation that let the experience happen without a hitch.
We authored the full Event Management Plan and the supporting documentation the event required: the event-specific Risk Assessment, the crowd safety management plan with RAMP and capacity calculations, the medical plan, the fire safety plan, the traffic management plan and the emergency plan. Planning ran from the first site meeting in November 2025 through regular site visits with Luttrellstown Castle and the wider supplier team.
Across the key vendors building the event, we reviewed more than 30 documents, checking that every contractor was working to a compatible safety standard. With guests arriving and leaving by coach across a compressed window each evening, the transport and pedestrian interface was planned in detail, and the marquee and Orangery capacities, egress routes and safe holding figures were all calculated and confirmed.
On the nights, Dessie and Peter filled the key operational roles between them across build, show and break. The safety operation ran in the background exactly as a hospitality event of this kind requires: present and ready, never visible to the guest.
The Result
Both evenings were delivered as planned, on 14 and 19 April 2026, with no incidents across either night.
Around 800 guests per night experienced the event Stories Ireland had designed, with the safety operation entirely in the background. For a high-end hospitality event, that invisibility is the measure of success.
For SEG, the engagement is a clear example of how we work with destination management companies. Most DMC work does not need a dedicated safety partner. When an event reaches the scale where it does, we are the partner a DMC like Stories Ireland can bring in, confident the safety operation will match the quality of the experience they are known for.
Our Part
We worked with Stories Ireland DMC as the safety partner for this two-night event at Luttrellstown Castle, providing the planning and the operational team across build, show and break.
Services we provided include:
- Event Management Plan and full supporting documentation suite
- Event-specific Risk Assessment
- Crowd safety management, RAMP analysis and capacity calculations
- Holding capacity and egress calculations for the marquee and Orangery
- Medical plan and fire safety plan
- Traffic management plan for coach arrivals and departures
- Emergency plan and evacuation procedures
- Vendor documentation review across the key suppliers
- Event Controller and safety functions across build, show and break
- Crowd & Event Safety consultancy
