Burnaby, B.C.-based ICM provides security consulting and services for indoor and outdoor venues. Until recent years, one of its main businesses was providing security for touring artists like Sarah McLachlan and Avril Lavigne. But the company stepped away from the grind of touring to focus on the Canadian market, mainly the West Coast.

“It’s not that we wouldn’t do it, but we got out of the focus of doing that to concentrate more on venue security and special event security,” says Marc Greenberg, risk manager and security consultant at ICM.

The ability to manage security at so many different styles of venue during its touring years gave ICM a broad range of event experience and an impressive portfolio. Those skills were brought to the attention of the City of Richmond, B.C., which needed security on site at the O Zone — one of three designated celebration sites to host concerts and attractions during the 2010 Winter Games, held earlier this year.

The O Zone was the largest of the three celebration sites in Lower Mainland B.C., comprising 24 hectares and multiple buildings, including Holland Heineken House, the official home of the Dutch Olympic Committee during the Games.

“Our job was to do a security review of the site and make recommendations to the city on how to protect it,” says Greenberg, a retired FBI agent who served for five years as the bureau’s representative to the Canadian government and RCMP in Ottawa.

During the Games, the O Zone was host to 13 different concerts and about 300,000 visitors. Richmond wanted the site to be as family-friendly as possible and set limitations on security, says Greenberg. “They opted for a slightly less stringent type of security screening than the Olympic sites themselves.”

Since the O Zone was not one of the sporting venues and not governed by VANOC, the Vancouver Organizing Committee, the City of Richmond was forced to pay for security out of its own coffers.
Greenberg and ICM had originally planned to set up a series of CCTV cameras in a wireless mesh network, but had to rethink due to cost issues raised by the city.

“With a 24-hectare site, we had a tremendous fence line and open space. That had to be protected from people who would want to enter the site to do harm or people who wanted to enter the site after hours to steal or vandalize property. There was some very valuable equipment there from the concerts and the vendors (worth) hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of dollars. That presented a big challenge for us in terms of how to secure it.”

ICM provided anywhere from 35 to 65 guards and security personnel on site to handle bag searches, wanding and screening at key checkpoints. But they also needed more eyes. Since a wide CCTV network was deemed unfeasible due to cost constraints, ICM had to get creative.

The solution to the problem was a fully mobile CCTV unit — one mounted on a vehicle. ICM found a retired U.S. Secret Service van on Craigslist that was almost perfect. It was already fully equipped with wiring and cabinets.

“I guess (the Secret Service) deactivated it and somehow it got into the public domain. I don’t know if they sold it off to the company that built it originally and they resold it, but somehow it became available.
“We made modifications to that van. We were able to place monitors and radio equipment and those types of things to turn it into a mobile command post.”

Greenberg estimates that ICM spent $12,000 retrofitting the van with equipment, including an Axis dome PTZ IP camera. The van could be moved from venue to venue and was manned 24x7. The van’s crew were in constant radio contact with security personnel; the CCTV camera was used to review crowd behaviour, search for missing children and record transgressions. Some of the van’s footage was turned over as evidence to the RCMP as part of ongoing criminal investigations.

ICM also rigged up an ingenious alarm system. Using a Videofied system from RSI Video Technologies — tiny infrared cameras and motion control sensors mounted to PVC pipes and held in place with concrete-filled paint cans — ICM deployed a tripwire system that could be moved to sensitive locations.

About two dozen of these detectors were placed in high-value target areas like the stage, mixer panels, gates and choke points. When tripped, these would generate an alarm on a panel in the van and provide 10 seconds of video to determine whether the alarm had been set off by a person or an animal.

Greenberg says the system was built for about one-tenth the cost of the CCTV plan originally proposed to Richmond and was quite effective — by using the system two trespassers were caught.

The van and detector system were such a success that the City of Richmond is considering using them at future events. The van could also be used for other security work, particularly monitoring labour disputes, says Greenberg.