Along with putting on one of the best live music events Missouri has to offer, our top priority at Roots N Blues is your safety. We hope the festival weekend offers you the chance to leave the stresses of daily life behind for a weekend and enjoy good food, drinks, and music in the company of your family and friends. We’ve taken a number of measures to keep the event as safe and secure as possible so you can enjoy Roots N Blues worry-free.
To meet local rules and regulations, and address community needs, the festival maintains a close relationship with the city government, including the police force. Plain-clothes and uniformed officers will be on-site throughout the festival’s hours of operation, as will representatives from our local Emergency Messaging Services. Should an emergency occur, the EMS team will get the word out via automated signage on the stage screens and by direct text message. You can opt into these messages by texting “RNB” to 67283. They recommend signing up now. Don’t fret any potential spam – they will only message you with important, relevant information!
Along with local law enforcement, Roots N Blues works with Chase Security, a veteran-owned, private security team that employs majority veterans and specializes in large events. Like Trio Presents, the company that puts on Roots N Blues, Chase Security is a small business, spearheaded by Justin Hulsey, a veteran who firmly believes in taking a “people-first approach” to security.
“We’re people over profit here,” he tells us. “Everybody that works for me will say that. I employ people—and this is key—that run to the fire. […] My guys, when things happen, they run toit so you don’t have to.” As someone with a personal attachment to and history with the live music industry, he shares our passion for creating a warm, friendly, and fun atmosphere where people can come and thoroughly enjoy themselves. “I think that’s what separates us from just a typical security company,” he says. “You can’t train people genuinely caring about other people. It’s either you have it or you don’t, and those are the people that we bring on.”
He advises that you familiarize yourself with all of the emergency exit points on the festival map (which will be available on the free Roots N Blues Festival app, along with lots of other helpful info about showtimes, vendors, and more – we suggest you download it before you arrive at the park!). If a potential safety or wellbeing issue arises for you during the festival, no matter how small, we encourage you to tell a member of the Chase team or a Roots N Blues volunteer, both of which will be uniformed and easily identifiable. If the individual themself cannot help with your problem, they will find someone who can.
The map will also show you where to find Mizzou Health Care’s First Aid Tent, which will be staffed by paramedics who can help you in the event of a health emergency. Free Culligan water stations will also be featured on the map, which we encourage you to make ample use of! While we anticipate a beautiful, temperate October weekend at this year’s fest, keeping hydrated is key to a great festival experience.
If you still have any unanswered questions about safety at the festival, please get in touch with us at [email protected].
