Introduction
GAP Event Services forms part of GAP Hire Solutions, the UK’s largest independent hire company with over 140 depots covering Scotland, England, Wales, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The Events division combines the expertise and huge product offering of all GAP’s services. Since its formation in 2014, the Events team has built good relationships with our customers ensuring that repeat work is retained year-on-year by offering a high level of service combined with competitive pricing. This has enabled a threefold increase in personnel to keep pace with demand.
The team all come from event backgrounds with the majority of experience lying in supplying Non-Mechanical equipment such as barriers and fencing to the events market – this is where our specialty lies.
Project
In August 2018, the European Championships were partly held in Glasgow, running from 2nd – 12th August. GAP was awarded the contract to supply all fencing and barriers for the event, across both its sporting and non-sporting venues. Throughout the games GAP supplied a variety of equipment including thousands of fence panels reaching 12,000 linear meters (lm) and close to 30,000 crowd control barriers amounting to roughly 70,000lm (43.5 miles). The fencing required for this project was vital for a number of reasons; GAP’s supplies converted all 15 venues into areas that allowed the games to be broadcasted throughout Europe, as well as ensuring the safety of everyone involved whilst facilitating the large numbers of visitors that arrived leading up to and during the games.
Challenges / Solutions
The major challenge facing GAP was the 15 venues in and around Glasgow all required their fencing and barriers at similar times. On top of this, many of the venues required a high volume of the equipment, which needed to be installed and quickly recovered to facilitate the events.
To deal with these challenges, GAP’s Events team met with the venue managers to undergo crucial detailed planning, scheduling the works to ensure that they met the various build programmes. Additionally, GAP purchased 2,112 new fence panels and 7,600 new crowd control barriers specifically for the Championships. There were seven GAP project managers involved to make sure everything ran smoothly and there were over 3,000 hours of labour completed to fulfil the road events alone.
The Events team factored in contingencies into their planning as they were aware that there would likely be changes onsite, due to unforeseen circumstances, that they would need to adapt to. They worked well within the tight time frames provided and overcame any obstacles that arose. All venues were fully cleared by GAP within seven days of the games ending, succeeding in completely clearing 5,500 barriers within five hours in one instance. This meant that GAP helped the event managers achieve their objective of minimising the impact the games had on the daily lives and routines of Glasgow’s residents and commuters.
Summary
Since 2014, GAP has supplied all of Glasgow City Council’s yearly events, building a strong working relationship with them in the process. GAP’s Events team’s past experience and success working with the Commonwealth Games, that were held in Glasgow in 2014, meant that the council’s events team was confident in choosing GAP as their first choice with its ability to supply the European Championships successfully.
GAP’s Event services team has the knowledge and skills to be able to supply a branded fencing solution that will withstand strong winds. Installing this type of solution is labour intensive and has to be done to exact specification to make it work. The result of the installations by GAP was that there were no failures of the fencing throughout the entirety of the project.
Testimonial
Jodi Terras, the Contracts Manager for the Glasgow 2018 games commented: “GAP Group made a significant contribution to the success of the Championships. Working across 15 venues and providing a flexible service level allowed timely responses to evolving requirements during design, delivery and dismantle phases of the Championships.
“During the Championships, GAP Group staff maintained professional, diligent and attentive relationships with Glasgow 2018 representatives and third parties. We would have no hesitation in recommending GAP Group for future events.”
Get in touch
Any event organisers who would like to find out more about what GAP can do for them can call their specialist events team on 0333 202 0712 or enquire via email to events@gap-group.co.uk.