Cathy Long
Founder & CEO
Leads the project vision and industry partnerships, drawing on decades of experience in live events and crowd safety.
CrowdVista × Innovate UKGet involved
Innovate UK funded · 9 months
Music & EventVenue Safety Project
Can the live music industry build a shared safety intelligence platform? We are working with venues across Liverpool and Greater Manchester to find out — and to build it together.
Project overview
We have been awarded a grant by Innovate UK to explore the potential of a shared safety intelligence platform to improve crowd safety. The nine month project explores the current landscape of safety data recorded by venues, and establishes the needs of the industry in this area.
A bespoke safety intelligence platform will then be developed in response to the information we gather, combining data on individual venues — crowd behaviour, accidents, safety incidents and audience demographics — with information from multiple organisations across their region.
Additional external data such as weather, transport and mobile network activity makes it possible to spot trends and solve complex event planning challenges, helping venues improve safety, reduce risks and make better business decisions.
Why take part?
We are looking to collaborate with a variety of live music venues across Liverpool and Greater Manchester to collect real time safety data and reports, so we can develop a product that is fit for the market.
By sharing data across the industry, venues gain access to valuable insights that would otherwise be difficult or expensive to obtain.
Liverpool & Greater Manchester
Who's behind the project?
Aposto is a team of sports and safety specialists with a collective 30 years' of experience, committed to making the UK the safest place in the world to attend a live event — beginning in the north-west.
CrowdVista™, the intelligence arm of Aposto, enables event organisers to share and access critical data points ahead of events and match days. This empowers operations and safety teams to take a proactive approach to mitigating risk and implementing preventative measures.
Having worked with numerous football clubs that share information on behavioural trends at matches, Aposto will now collaborate with the live music sector to explore how data sharing can improve crowd safety.
Aposto + CrowdVista™
- Aposto — crowd safety experts leading the project and working directly with venues.
- CrowdVista™ — the data platform through which venues will share and access insights.
Objectives
Engage venues
Bring together live music venues from Liverpool and Greater Manchester to work with us across the project.
Share safety data
Venues share the safety data they record today and tell us what they need from the future.
Test the platform
Venues trial the safety intelligence platform and review whether it is fit for the market.
Where we're working
The project focuses on two neighbouring regions with some of the busiest grassroots and mid-scale live music scenes in the UK: the Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester.
Working across both regions means venues can compare insights with nearby organisations, and see how regional factors like weather, transport and network activity shape crowd behaviour on any given night.
- Liverpool City Region
- Greater Manchester
Timeline
- 01
Oct – Dec 2026
Venue engagement
- 02
Nov 2026
Venue engagement workshop
- 03
Nov 2026 – Jan 2027
Platform build and testing
- 04
Feb – Mar 2027
Platform feedback
Meet the project team
The people you will be working with across the nine months.
Steve Dews
CPTO
Shapes the technology and product strategy behind the safety intelligence platform.
Natasha Riall
Project Manager
Keeps the nine month programme on track and is the main point of contact for participating venues.
Grace Goodwin
Project Researcher
Runs the venue questionnaires and interviews, mapping the current safety data landscape.
Craig Mulhern
Senior Developer
Builds the platform, from data pipelines to the dashboards venues will test.
Hannah Shannon
Head of Operations
Coordinates venue engagement, workshops and the day to day running of the project.
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You're invited
Venue engagement workshop
Join us in November 2026 to hear how better use of data can make live events safer and more sustainable — including what we have learned working with football clubs that share behavioural trend data from matches. Reserve your free place on Eventbrite.
Get in touch
Run a live music venue in Liverpool or Greater Manchester? Tell us a little about your venue and we will be in touch about taking part.