The Little Rock Marathon will serve as the host for the second Little Rock Event Security Summit.  The one-day conference will take place on Wednesday, August 22, at the Centre at University Park in Little Rock. The cost is $80 per person.

The summit is presented in part by Sunbelt Convention Services, Races Online, PODS and Arkansas Lamination Products and Services (ALPS).

“The theme this year is collaboration,” said Gina Pharis, executive director of the Little Rock Marathon. “We have found that it is so important to work together with all of your partners in planning for your event. You don’t want to have to introduce yourself in the middle of a crisis.”

The Little Rock Event Security Summit will feature a keynote address from Chief Kenton Buckner of the Little Rock Police Department. In addition to his time in Little Rock, Buckner was the assistant police chief with the Louisville Metro Police Department and oversaw the two-week Kentucky Derby Festival that featured nearly 50 events annually.

“We believe Chief Buckner will be a great speaker to talk about events and collaboration,” Pharis continued. “In Louisville, he had to work with a number of different event organizers, law enforcement agencies and city officials to provide services to nearly 1 million people in a two-week span.”

The Summit will have four break-out discussion topics – Event Day Planning, Emergency Action Planning, Threat Assessment and Communication – which will be led by subject matter experts, and partners of the Little Rock Marathon. Those partners are: Downtown Little Rock Partnerships, Little Rock Police Department, Arkansas State Fusion Center and the City of Little Rock Emergency Management Office.

A case study on the 2018 Little Rock Marathon will also be presented, showing the benefits of collaboration to the overall success of an event and its security.

For more information about the conference, contact Mike Garrity at [email protected].

To register for the Little Rock Event Security Summit, visit littlerockmarathon.com/event-security-summit/.