How to run a safe and successful community art trail
08/08/2025
Art trails can be a wonderful way to bring communities together, showcase the best in local talent and creativity, and complement wider efforts to boost local tourism.
While art trails and their associated activities generally carry minimal risk, there are potential hazards that organisers and participants need to be aware of.
Careful planning can help ensure you strike the right balance between putting on a vibrant celebration of art, while also ensuring the safety of people and property throughout your event. In this article, we discuss some simple, practical ways to mitigate the risks you might encounter.
Risks relating to building owner
Art trails typically rely on local artists or community centres opening their doors to the public to come and view their artwork.
Hazards to consider will range from property to property, but could include things like:
- Slip and trip risks, for example from loose carpets, or steep, narrow staircases
- Fire risks, for example from candles or portable electrical appliances Food hygiene risks (including allergic reactions) if any food is being prepared on site or offered to visitors
- While responsibility for minimising risks inside a property ultimately rests with the owner of the building, if you are encouraging people to visit a premises (by including it as an official part of your art trail) then you have a general duty of care to ensure the safety of volunteers and visitors.
So think carefully about what kind of help, support and guidance you should provide to the owner of the building if participating in your art trail.
This could include:
- Creating a ‘welcome pack’ for participants, with advice on some of the main hazards to consider and ways to mitigate them. You might also consider signposting participants to official sources of advice, for example the Food Standards Agency for guidance on food labelling
- Visiting the premises prior to the event to visually inspect for potential hazards, and discussing ways these hazards could be mitigated with the property owner (your public liability insurance may require you to carry out a formal risk assessment at each participating premises, so check with your insurer)
- Providing ready-made disclaimer notices that participants can place in a clearly visible location outside their property, advising visitors that they enter at their own risk. Building owners can also add their own information about any specific risks/hazards that visitors should be aware of
Risks relating to other venues and activities
You might also be planning workshops or other events as part of your art trail. If so, again it’s important to consider your general duty of care to participants and guests.
This could include checking the credentials of workshop venues and organisers, to ensure they are suitably qualified and experienced to carry out the proposed activity; ensuring they have adequate public liability insurance; and making sure there is a risk assessment in place that covers the proposed activity.
Venues may already have their own risk assessments, but you should confirm that these have been reviewed (and if required, updated) with the proposed activity in mind. For example, if a venue that does not normally host children’s activities is hosting a children’s workshop as part of your art trail, then this might present additional risks that need to be planned for and mitigated.
If any other types of organisations are participating in your art trail in any way – again, it’s important to ensure they have adequate public liability insurance in place. This could include, for example, sponsoring businesses who may want to put up banners or advertising boards along the trail, or in participating venues.
Further risk and insurance considerations
It’s also important to think about the safety and wellbeing of your volunteers, not just for the duration of the art trail, but also in the period of preparation beforehand, for example if they are helping to deliver boxes of leaflets, set up stands, stalls, tables and chairs etc, or potentially even helping to move or install artwork.
Personal accident insurance is an affordable cover that provides a financial benefit should a volunteer injure themselves in an accident while supporting your art trail.
Finally, it’s important to ensure that all the hard work you have put in to ensure your trail runs smoothly and safely is appropriately documented, to give you further protection in the event of any claims. It's a good idea to keep minutes of any meetings where health and safety, or risk and insurance considerations, are discussed, and records of any subsequent actions taken.
