Responding to requests from a wide range of professionals for a safety webinar focused specifically on producing safer outdoor events, Take1 Insurance, the leading insurance provider to the entertainment industry, will be hosting a webinar this Wednesday, March 19th, to discuss how to best utilize the latest advances in weather forecasting and monitoring technology — Weather First: A 60-Minute Primer on Incorporating Weather Technology in Outdoor Event Safety Plans by Weather Decision Technologies (WDT).

According to Scott Carroll, Executive Vice President & Program Director of Take1 Insurance, the leading entertainment insurance provider is again teaming up with Event Safety Alliance (ESA) and Weather Decision Technologies (WDT) to ensure this Wednesday’s webinar is as compelling as the inaugural event safety webinar that was held last November. The March 19 webinar will take place at 2:00PM eastern standard time and is open to anyone involved in the business of producing and staging live outdoor events. Registration for the webinar is open here.

“Incorporating the latest advances in weather forecasting and monitoring into a comprehensive safety plan is probably the single most important thing a producer can do to ensure a safer outdoor live event,” Carroll said. “Weather affects every aspect of an outdoor live event. From an insurance perspective, when it comes to weather planning, we are going to want to know, in some specific detail, how the weather will be managed and monitored at the show site.”

Elaborating further, ESA Executive Director Jim Digby noted that the webinar will focus specifically on issues like weather planning and "predictive weather forecasting" vs. "nowcasting," and show stop/hold planning. “I am very proud to announce that this webinar will involve the participation of David VandenHeuvel, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Services at Weather Decision Technologies (WDT) in Norman, Oklahoma and a founding member of the ESA. David has over 32 years of weather and safety experience, 23 years of which were in the United States Air Force (now retired). WDT has developed custom weather decision aids and services specific to the live event industry, including interactive maps, alerting and mobile applications.”

According to Digby, in 2013 WDT provided weather support for over 1,500 events around the globe, including Linkin Park, Paul McCartney, and the just completed 2014 Super Bowl in East Rutherford, New Jersey.