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In wake of Orlando shootings, venue safety comes into question


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Fatal shootings in Orlando this weekend have renewed concerns about venue safety for entertainers and audiences alike.

Early Sunday, an armed assailant opened fire in gay nightclub Pulse Orlando, killing 50 people and wounding 53 in the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. history. The massacre comes less than two days after former The Voice contestant Christina Grimmie was shot and killed in a meet-and-greet following a show at Orlando's Plaza Live Theater late Friday.

Juana Villegas, who was one of roughly 300 people attending Grimmie's Plaza Live show Friday, told the Orlando Sentinel that club security looked through her bag but didn't pat her down or put concertgoers through metal detectors. Pulse typically hosts 500 to 800 patrons a night, although details about its security measures on the night of the shooting are unknown.

"What both of these incidents illustrate is that no event is too small and that there are vulnerabilities, regardless of whether these (attacks) are terrorism, hate crimes or someone who is mentally disturbed," says Russ Simons, managing partner at facility management firm Venue Solutions Group. "It's a completely new day in terms of how we have to look at these things."

Experts worry that little has changed to increase security since the shootings at Paris' Bataclan concert hall in November, where 89 died, and New York's Irving Plaza last month, when one person was killed and three were wounded before a T.I. concert. Unlike most sports arenas and stadiums, where metal detectors are mandatory, many smaller venues aren't equipped to invest in the screening devices, which typically start at $4,000 to $5,000.

"It's expensive and may be cost-prohibitive for some venues, but the cost of not having it is obvious, and one of those costs is Christina Grimmie," says Ed McPherson, a Los Angeles entertainment attorney and crisis manager. Concert venues range in capacity from "20 people to 20,000 people, so you can't expect (the smallest) bars to have them. So the question is, at what point do you put them in?"

Club security measures can vary widely depending on the venue and budget, says John White, president of Protection Management LLC in Canton, Ohio. "It depends on the geographical area the venue is in. Is it in a high-crime or high-risk area? These are all things you want to look at to determine what the risk is."

Security personnel at smaller venues may be staff bouncers (who are often not subject to the same regulations as full-time security officers), off-duty police officers, or contractors. "To have security on staff is expensive," White, a retired police officer, explains.

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What we know about the Orlando nightclub shooting
Scores of people were killed and many more were wounded in the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

When it comes to security training and background checks, "each state is different, and the laws in each state, depending on the actual duties that someone like that might have, are different," Simons says. "I would think it's likely that we'll see some additional legislation." In New York, for example, armed guards are required to undergo a 47-hour firearms training program to obtain a pistol license, while in Florida, only 28 hours are required.

Already, artists have taken safety measures after Grimmie's murder. Selena Gomez canceled her fan meet-and-greet in Miami Saturday. Gomez, who was a close friend of Grimmie's, paid teary tribute to the singer onstage. Bea Miller, who is opening for Gomez on select dates of her Revival tour, also canceled a pre-concert fan event citing safety concerns, but continued with a signing after the show. Representatives for Gomez and Miller did not return USA TODAY's requests for comment.

Expect to see more artists canceling fan events in the weeks to come, but not on a permanent basis, experts predict.

"The immediate reaction right now is not surprising to me, but as people take a closer look at all this, eventually those artists and their representatives will get more comfortable with the security that's being provided at those venues," Simons says. "If they feel safe, then everything will go back to what we've enjoyed and expect, and in areas where they feel the security profile needs to be improved, they'll hold back from doing some of those more public events."

But even if artists choose to eliminate face time with fans, that doesn't necessarily mean they're safer. "The sad fact is, this guy would've gotten (Grimmie) onstage," McPherson says. "It's easier at a meet-and-greet, but if he really wanted to, he could've gotten up close and hit her from the crowd. The bottom line is: Until you start making security better at these venues, it doesn't really matter what you're doing or what you're canceling within these shows. You're going to be vulnerable."

Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, is similarly cynical about stricter security measures coming into play in the aftermath of this weekend's shootings.

When it comes to venues, "you're not going to solve anything by trying to secure them all — it's the availability of guns" that's problematic, Schneier says. "In a week, there'll be another mass shooting to write about, and it won't be at a club, it'll be at someplace else. Club owners do things because they don't want violence in their facility, but that's them solving their problem, not society's problem with gun deaths."

White says it's unlikely that clubs will invest in metal detectors after these incidents. "It's like the movie theater in Colorado," he says, referencing the 2012 shooting that left 12 dead after a midnight showing of a Batman film. "(Cinemark) just won a civil suit about not having had metal detectors. Random acts are tough to predict. But as this gets more news coverage, I think the management of a good percentage of facilities will start looking at their security and ask, 'Could it happen here?' "

Contributing: Jayme Deerwester