Tampere Hall – the forerunner in event security

In what ways does new technology improve event security? The SURE project carried out an agile experiment with Tampere Hall and MarshallAI. They explored the use of a mobile temperature detector, and simultaneously learned a lot about the benefits of the situational awareness platform (Insta Blue Aware).

Tampere Hall is the largest conference and cultural centre in the Nordic countries. Normally, over thousand events, concerts and meetings happen there every year. Tampere Hall is also the home of the world’s only Moomin Museum and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Tampere Hall Ltd is an active operator in the safety and security sector, and that’s why it joined the Smart Urban Security and Event Resilience Project SURE. Tampere Hall’s security approach is based on prevention and anticipation. The SURE agile experiment enhanced both aspects.

– The faster the information can be transferred, the swifter is the response to the situation. We must also work on scenarios, to recognise incident sequences and consider the safest options available, says Marko Koivisto, Property Manager of Tampere Hall.

When pyrotechnics are used or for example candles are burned in the Tampere Hall events, fire safety is implemented according to the general rules. Thermal cameras have been in use for years, but they are not capable of automated alarms.

The goal: mobile and user-friendly device

When SURE agile experiments were prepared, a new kind of need was noticed: a demand for a device that would be mobile and suitable for as many different environments as possible. The events of Tampere Hall do not always happen within the Hall.

– We organise events in the nearby Sorsapuisto Park, and increasingly elsewhere in the city region, says Koivisto.

MarshallAI, an expert in machine vision, made a device that detects changes in temperature and sends notions by SMS, should they exceed the limits. The device is movable, easy to bring in any location and self-calibrating.

The COVID-19 complicated all the scheduled plans, cancelling most of the events where the device would have been field-tested. Instead, Tampere Hall was able to conduct some alternative testing.

– We have already seen how MarshallAI’s core expertise works with thermal cameras. This experiment was a good opportunity to test some specific needs for the device: mobility and user-friendliness, says Head of Smart City Arttu Laitinen of MarshallAI.

The SURE joint situational awareness

The SURE project is aiming to integrate data, gathered from various sensors, into the joint Insta Blue Aware (IBA) situational awareness platform. A device detecting changes in temperature is only a small part of an interesting system.

– The entire sequence from a sensor to the platform must be well in order. Everything we have learnt from data transmission and technology integrations is developing our safety and security approach in a major way, says Koivisto.

The experiment was a part of the SURE project (Smart Urban Security and Event Resilience). The project was granted 3,2 million euros from the Urban Innovative Actions, an ERDF-funded initiative of the European Commission.

Business Tampere is responsible for the upscaling of solutions, and provides a framework in which the technology providers can run the experiments.

Tampere Region has a significant concentration of safety and security know-how and organizations, both nationally and internationally. There is more than 250 organisations related to safety and security in the region. Tampere region safety and security cluster, which has been in operation since 2011, provides an easy access to local ecosystem.