from IFCPP pre-conference partner Majestic Collaborations, Co-Founder Matthew Kowal
Build Your Cadre. Then Come to New Orleans.
All events are events. Whether it’s a museum gala, a campus incident, a protest, or a street festival, the same operational systems come online. Someone is watching the entrances and exits. Someone is managing communications, guest flow, and accessibility. Someone is thinking about power, contingencies, and what happens if the plan changes mid‑stream.
IFCPP members live in that reality every day. You care for people in places. You understand duty of care not just as a legal phrase, but as a daily practice that balances safety, service, collections, and community expectations all at once.
Learning From People Who Do This at Scale
I was reminded of that when I presented our Train for Strain program with Christopher Singh, Senior Security Manager at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the Met Gala, Christopher’s team is responsible for A‑list Hollywood stars, museum guests, demonstrations, and film shoots, all happening at the same time in the same building. It’s a vivid example of what many of you know well: multiple systems — security, hospitality, public image, collections care — all running under strain, with no room for error.
Across IFCPP and ASIS, I’ve met many professionals doing this kind of work quietly and consistently. You are often the bridge between cultural institutions, city partners, and the public when things are ordinary — and when they are not.
The ReadyWhen Foundations Certificate, taking place in New Orleans on April 18–19, 2026, was built with this reality in mind.
What ReadyWhen Offers
ReadyWhen combines three elements that matter for IFCPP members:
- A field practicum, where we study a large public event as a live classroom.
- A structured curriculum, built from hundreds of hours of Art of Mass Gatherings convenings and the combined experience of Performing Arts Readiness and Majestic Collaborations.
- A set of online micro‑credentials in topics like crowd safety, emergency power, food systems, accessibility, and incident command, so the learning is visible and cumulative.
On day one, participants move through rotating learning stations at French Quarter Festival, looking at the event through different lenses: access and egress, communications, power, food and water, crowd movement, partnerships, and more. On day two, we shift into the National WWII Museum, using classrooms and site visits to zoom out to the whole cultural district and zoom back in to specific operational and emergency management questions.
The aim is not another plan that sits on a shelf. It’s a way to make operational knowledge and emergency thinking live in the same conversation.
Who You Might Send
Every organization is structured differently, but almost all of them have a small group of people who “run the place” on the most complex days. Those might include:
- Security or public safety leadership
- Operations and production leads
- Facilities or engineering
- Accessibility and guest services
- Communications or external relations
- Front‑of‑house management
You can come on your own or send a small cross‑functional team of three to five people. The benefit of sending a team is that they get to see the same environment from different angles and return with a shared language. The benefit of coming on your own is that you can embed yourself deeply, then start building that shared language back home.
If possible, consider inviting a senior leader as well. ReadyWhen includes content for executive leadership on how preparedness frameworks can expand institutional capacity, attract funders, and align safety with mission delivery. Having decision‑makers see the work alongside you makes it easier to justify future investments and policy changes.
A Delegation Model You Can Adapt
In Denver, Youth on Record is sending a four‑person delegation: their Executive Director, Senior Events Coordinator, and two emerging young leaders who are already involved in venue and festival work. They used a simple internal application process, made a shared investment in travel and tuition, and set a clear expectation: bring what you learn back to the organization and the broader community.
That model is easy to adapt:
- Identify the roles in your organization or district that are critical on high‑complexity days.
- Invite interest from those people (or nominate them) and ask how they would bring the learning back.
- Decide whether to send one person or a small group this year.
- Frame it as both professional development and civic infrastructure training.
Why Now
New Orleans is a city that understands the connection between cultural life and emergency readiness. French Quarter Festival and the National WWII Museum are not abstract case studies; they are real operations with real stakes and long histories of collaboration with city partners.
This first ReadyWhen cohort is capped at about 60 participants and is already more than half full. IFCPP members are exactly the kind of practitioners this was designed for: people who already think in terms of systems, risk, and the safety of people and places.
If you see your work in this description — or if you can immediately think of three or four colleagues who do — this might be the year to step into a new kind of learning environment.
