ReadyWhen Foundations Certificate in Event & Emergency Operations
A new certificate program that turns everyday event & venue skills into recognized emergency‑operations capacity for cultural spaces.
Who it’s for: Operations, security, and guest-services professionals at festivals, venues, museums, libraries, and historic sites. Also for event producers, community service providers, and volunteers committed to supporting local preparedness.
What it builds on: The crowd management, logistics, hospitality, safety planning, or communications work you already do—whatever your role, no one is starting from zero.
What it adds: Practical skills in essential operations (water, power, communications, safety), simple emergency‑management frameworks, shared language with public agencies, and tools for planning before, during, and after disruptions.
How you learn: Focused sessions in-person and online, plus a guided practicum at a live event or in your own venue, using checklists and observation prompts.
What you leave with:
- A practical, site‑specific event and emergency operations outline.
- Templates and checklists you can adapt with your team.
- Stronger relationships with local partners.
- A certificate that recognizes both your existing strengths and your new readiness skills.
Want to know how your community would fare in a future disaster?
Visit its events & venues today.
The #ReadyWhen Foundations Certificate in Event & Emergency Operations repositions arts and cultural venues, community organizations, and event professionals from entities needing protection to community resilience assets with documented emergency response capabilities. Certificate holders demonstrate practical skills in situational leadership, operational decision-making under pressure, and essential operational systems like water and electrics.
Events and public programs function as controlled emergencies, using identical operational systems as disaster response: temporary infrastructure, crowd management, logistics coordination, and communication under pressure. The foundations training program builds a shared vocabulary and common operating pictures across different roles within organizations and between arts and emergency management sectors—showing how your specific expertise advances community resilience. It applies the Four Pillars resilience framework (accessibility, safety, sustainability, community) to strengthen both everyday operations and emergency response capacity.
Training requires about 15-hours of learning through a combination of live workshops and self-paced on-demand online modules, or documented equivalence, plus passing an online exam.
Who is this for?
No previous emergency management or specific event production experience is required. Whatever role you’re coming from, this certificate deepens cross-sector abilities for professionals across arts, culture, events, and emergency management—as well as community organizers, faith-based leaders, and anyone committed to building community resilience.
Event staff & safety professionals: Fortify and formalize cross-sector operational skills, lead more effectively within your organization, and bridge event operations with emergency preparedness in planning and partnerships.
Arts administrators: Gain tools to coordinate and communicate across operations, emergency management, funders, and community partners—using strategic resilience frameworks to strengthen daily operations while building pathways to financial sustainability beyond traditional arts funding.
Volunteers, community workers, local leaders, or anyone else committed to helping their community prepare for whatever lies ahead:
Gain practical skills to support people and protect what matters most. Expand your abilities to safely host events while simultaneously gaining skills useful in disaster response and recovery.
How it works
The #ReadyWhen Foundations Certificate is built on credential-stacking: each required training has standalone professional value, and together they create comprehensive operational expertise recognized across event production, emergency management, and community resilience sectors.
You might already have some of the required certifications—if so, simply submit documentation. Experienced professionals with existing competency in the core operational areas can also pursue certification without any additional training by submitting required materials and passing the evaluation.
For most professionals, the Event & Emergency Operations Bootcamp and site walkthrough practicum serve as a valuable connecting framework—showing you how safety planning, operational infrastructure, and communications design operate in both celebration and crisis contexts.
Participation is flexible: You can complete individual trainings without pursuing formal certification. If you’d like to get certified, you’ll upload your required documentation materials and register for the online evaluation for a one-time processing fee.
Key Competencies
Fundamentals of Operational Systems
Understand the basics of essential infrastructure systems (water, sanitation, power, food) through standardized calculations and configurations, enabling effective coordination with specialists and informed decision-making across event production and emergency response settings.
Communications & Coordination
Operate communication equipment (radios, PA systems) and ensure clear, strategic communication across diverse stakeholders during both everyday operations and crisis contexts. Training incorporates Incident Command System (ICS) protocols and accessible design practices to prepare effective briefings and communications for diverse audiences and scenarios.
Accessibility, Functional Needs, and Serving Diverse Populations
Recognize and apply accessibility frameworks to identify gaps and develop strategies for space, event, and communications design that serve diverse populations—including people with functional needs, multiple language communities, and a variety of age groups.
Cross-Sector Frameworks & Documentation
Apply emergency management structures and protocols and the four pillars resilience framework to analyze and strengthen organizational readiness, translating between event operations and emergency preparedness to amplify capacity and improve outcomes in both contexts.
Certificate Requirements
Training that stacks. Experience that counts. Certification that opens doors.
1. Learn it
Complete approximately 15 hours of training combining online on-demand courses with in-person intensive work.
Online modules include food handler certification, crowd safety manager training, temporary power, and other fundamentals. These credentials stack—each has standalone value and together they build comprehensive operational capacity.
The core course powering this training is the Event & Emergency Operations Bootcamp (10 hours, in-person), which connects the dots across these specialized skills through hands-on training in the essential systems that power both events and emergency response: water, sanitation, power, communications, safety planning, and accessibility.
Experienced professionals who’d like to certify can submit documentation of existing credentials, and demonstrate competency in lieu of the foundations bootcamp by passing the certification evaluation.
2. Live it
Apply your training through hands-on assessment of real operational contexts. Complete a site walkthrough practicum—either join our experiential training at partner festivals nationwide or complete the self-led version at an event in your community using our assessment framework.
For venue-based professionals, you can additionally assess your organization’s existing capabilities and risk exposure using frameworks that position your assets within emergency management systems—creating documentation useful for funders, emergency managers, and community partners.
3. Certify
Register to take the online evaluation combining multiple-choice and short-answer questions with scenario-based assessments. You’ll also submit your required credentials and practicum materials for validation.
The evaluation tests operational knowledge, emergency management frameworks, and applied decision-making through fictional scenarios tailored to different institutional contexts and risk profiles. You’ll demonstrate competency through operational briefings, incident response analysis, and after-action recommendations—showing how you apply frameworks to real-world situations under pressure.
What makes this certification unique
This isn’t your typical safety certification. Every skill and scenario is assessed through four interconnected pillars: safety, accessibility, sustainability, and community engagement. These four pillars of resilience have been honed over the last decade by Majestic Collaborations through its touring experiential learning program The Art of Mass Gatherings, recognized by FEMA for its approach to enhancing community disaster readiness.
This mirrors how actual operations work—preparing participants to navigate and lead planning when experts of diverse backgrounds convene. Accessibility decisions affect evacuation routes, waste systems inform resource continuity, and community trust determines what you’re capable of mobilizing, whether activating volunteer networks, partnering with neighboring organizations, or cultivating relationships with local emergency management and public safety professionals.
The curriculum values what makes gatherings beloved: the embedded memory of place, the volunteer networks built over decades, the cultural infrastructure that transcends perfect facilities. Participants learn to recognize threshold moments when routine operations shift toward incident response, practicing decision-making through immersive scenarios grounded in real cultural properties.
Upcoming Training Opportunities
Coming to IFCPP in April
Earn your Foundations Certificate in Event & Emergency Operations
In April 2026, earn your certificate in a weekend intensive at the International Foundation for Cultural Property Protection’s 27th Annual Conference in New Orleans!
The weekend kicks off on Saturday, April 18th with an immersive practicum through the renowned French Quarter Festival. Experience operations firsthand through a 4 hour guided tour of the festival infrastructure, featuring interviews with professionals and interactive learning activities. We’ll take a look at critical waste, water, and power systems, evaluating the site through the lenses of the four pillars of resilience, all while enjoying the culture, music, and food of this beloved annual event. A full-day pre-conference on Sunday, April 19th will flesh out the classroom training component and collaborative hands-on scenario activities required for the certification.
Designed for cultural venue professionals preparing for climate and disaster impacts, all activities have a strong throughline from daily operations to community resilience. Built around the realities of museums, libraries, historic sites, and cultural centers, the program uses live event observation and practical classroom work to help participants see how their existing strengths in crowd experience, building stewardship, accessibility, and mission-driven programming can support communities when conditions change.