GUEST ARTICLE BY DAN HARDY

New Immersion Zone at Retail Risk – London is a triumph…

The race was on.

At 2pm on the Wednesday I must admit, suddenly what seemed like a great idea just 3 months ago was not looking quite so appealing.
Stood in an empty conference venue, we were now faced with the reality of delivering on our promises. Deep breath…

Three months previously, in conversation with the folks at Retail Risk, I suggested that it would be epic to construct a dummy shop.

The idea was that we would build it, furnish it with stock, fit it out with an integrated suite of tech drawn from the myriad of Retail Risk sponsors, add our own security personnel and, with the help of some terrific actors, create a shopping experience for delegates to Retail Risk – London like nothing they had seen before.
What would be so special about this shopping experience? I bet you are wondering!

The answer is that on this visit to the shop, shoppers (all retailer delegates to the conference of course) would experience various criminal attacks, including armed robbery and burglary.

Briefing the actors to create a realistic attack scenario, we planned to show retailers exactly what it was like for their staff when confronted with serious crime and serious levels of violence.

However, with just 16 hours to go until the shop had to be open for business, currently all we had in place was 60sqm of blank carpet!

We had planned to work through the night if necessary. Sometimes at events it is not possible to gain access to the conference venue until late the proceeding night.

I don’t think visitors to the conference realise how large an army of people are required to turn an empty room into a vibrant conference with dozens of stands, a big stage with full AV, dining areas and workshops set. And often people work through the night to achieve this.

However, on this occasion lady luck smiled upon us. The venue gave us the go-ahead to be in from 2pm the preceding day. Magic!

Meticulous planning by the ASEL team, in combination with our wonderful exhibition team who design and build our stands every year, was about to be put to the test. Due to the number of tech partners involved, this was not something that we had the chance to have a dummy run at. We were going to find out now, and in pretty short order, whether the shop could even be built in time, let alone all the tech installed and brought up to speed.

In through the main doors poured our kit. Piles and piles of panels, miles of cables and about a dozen crew all united in the goal… To build the first Immersion Zone ever for Retail Risk – London.

In came the crates and crates of technology, from shutters and grilles to cameras, secure cabinets, fake stock, real stock and everything it seemed but the kitchen sink. It seemed chaotic. However, thanks to the meticulous planning things soon took shape.

By 7pm we had a shop. By 9pm we had a working shop! And, after a decent night’s sleep, by 8am we had a fully working dummy shop stocked, staffed and ready to go for the first criminal scenario. If you see Frazer’s walk-through of the store on social media it was taken as the last bit of glue was drying, trim setting and tech being tested. But we did it. Phew!

Throughout the day, business was brisk. Using a pre-booking system retailers booked their preferred slots in advance. And across the day we probably subjected around 200 retailers to very realistic recreations of criminal incidents, before breaking the whole thing down in just 90 minutes to make way for the Pride of Retail Risk Awards!

I have to say that I am immensely proud of how the team made it all happen. And I am very grateful to our partners for their support in making the first ever Immersion Zone a reality. Hopefully, we will get to do it again very soon… watch this space.

And I think that we achieved a lot today…

The Immersion Zone showed retailers in a very real way the value of the seamless integration of people and technology to provide prevention, detection and reactive investigation in relation to criminal matters.

I also hope it has got retailers thinking about how they can use something like the Immersion Zone to better train their staff, and to prepare them for the realities of dealing with the public. In particular, the armed robbery scenario showed the importance of supporting staff and colleagues in the face of escalating violent crime.

The Immersion Zone experience genuinely created shock and awe in the retailers that experienced it. I have never seen so many retailers go quiet – an achievement in itself!

Perhaps it is only when we ourselves face these scenarios, even in a controlled environment, that we can truly empathise with those who are exposed to the real thing.

And now it is time for me to slip into my tux for this evening’s Pride of Retail Risk Awards, of which we are title sponsor with Smoke Screen. Time to celebrate the bravery and heroics of those people who actually have experienced these things first-hand and their bravery and resilience under pressure and in the face of personal danger.