Roderick van Gelder has been working as a Risk Assessor and Consultant for the entertainment industry since 2002. Initially as part of the Playbill Venue Management team, managing the Hordern Pavilion and Royal Hall of Industries at Moore Park, Sydney, but changed to a full time position with Stage Safety p/l in 2004.
In the Safety Consultant capacity he prepared WHS Management systems for companies as diverse as Sydney Symphony, Opera Australia, Howard & Sons Pyrotechnics, Pollard Productions, Chameleon Touring Systems, Norwest Productions, V-Festival, 32Hundred Lighting (including AS4801 accreditation) and many others.
A Cert. IV qualified Risk Manager, Roderick combines that knowledge with 25 years of experience as lighting designer and production manager for many national and international arts organisations to provide risk management solutions with an in-depth understanding of the entertainment industry.
Roderick has been involved in a wide variety of events from corporate events for Qantas, Telstra, Lexus, Toyota, IBM, Woolworths, Nissan, Myer, MBF, Harley-Davidson, Sony among many others, to the arts for Opera Australia, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Glen Street Theatre, to concerts and festivals such as V-Festival Australia, Jack Johnson, Jamiroquai, Daft Punk, Sydney Comedy Festival, to celebrations such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge 75th Birthday for the NSW Premiers Department and the 2008 New Years’ Eve celebrations for the City of Sydney.
As part of the original V-Festival Australia team he was responsible for the overall health and safety planning but also heavily involved in the site planning and lay-out in recognition of crowd flow considerations.
A qualified trainer, Roderick has been providing targeted OH&S and risk management training for entertainment professionals. Roderick has been invited to present at various conferences such as the Venue Management Association (Australia), PALME in Singapore and LETPC in Johannesburg, ACETA Convention 2018 as well as for smaller groups such as the NSW Local Council Association, University of Technology in Sydney, Design Quintessence Workshops and as part of the Entech trade shows around Australia.
In recent years Roderick has been researching major event disasters with the aim to gain an understanding how it could happen and how to prevent a repeat. The first disaster he reviewed was Love Parade in Duisburg, Germany where 21 people lost their life in a crowd crush. His findings were presented during the 2011 Venue Management Association Congress and well received. In 2012 he reviewed the investigation reports from the Indianapolis stage collapse to analyse the cause of the incident. His findings were presented at the 2012 VMA congress.
A personal milestone project was writing the Australian Entertainment Safety Resource Guide which was launched in December 2017. The project was financed through crowdfunding with strong backing from many industry providers and individuals.
Despite a serious lack of financial support from agencies and government, the site enjoys strong visitors numbers.
