Southbank Events festival risks
Risk matrix slide with eight risks and an owner on each
A risk matrix answers a different question from a risk register: it shows which risks demand action now, not the full list with controls and dates. This one covers a March festival run by Southbank Events, a fictional event company.
What is on the slide
- Mitigate Immediately, high impact and likely
- Heat above 38 degrees, Safety. Headline act cancels, Programming.
- Monitor, high impact but unlikely
- Main stage structure fails, Ops. Site water supply cut, Ops.
- Prepare, low impact but likely
- Scanning queues at the gate, Gate. Shuttle buses run late, Transport.
- Accept, low impact and unlikely
- Merch stalls do not show, Retail. One food truck fails audit, Food.
- Axes and responses
- Likelihood runs across from low to high, impact runs down from high to low, and each quadrant is named by the response it calls for rather than by a score.
When this is the right slide
A likelihood and impact grid with response labels suits a readiness review where the audience has to see which risks demand action before the event rather than read a full register.
What to swap it for
Grouping: 3×3 Nine-Cell Matrix. Swap to the nine cell grid when the organisation's risk framework uses three bands on each axis and a two by two would force medium risks into the wrong corner.
What this slide shows
A title reads Southbank Festival Risks, with a framing line saying eight risks for the March festival on likelihood and impact, each with the team that owns the response. A two by two grid fills the slide, and each quadrant is named by the response it calls for. Monitor, top left, high impact but unlikely: main stage structure fails, Ops; site water supply cut, Ops. Mitigate Immediately, top right, high impact and likely: heat above 38 degrees, Safety; headline act cancels, Programming. Accept, bottom left: merch stalls do not show, Retail; one food truck fails audit, Food. Prepare, bottom right, low impact but likely: scanning queues at the gate, Gate; shuttle buses run late, Transport. The axes are labelled outside the grid, likelihood running from low to high across the top and impact from high to low down the side. Each quadrant holds two risks, so the lower half of each card is empty.
When this is the right slide
Use it for a readiness review shortly before an event or a go live, for a board level risk summary, or for a project risk triage where the team has to agree what gets attention this month. The matrix is a summary, and its value is that it fits on one screen and ends in four actions. It is not a substitute for the register: a register carries every risk with its controls, residual rating, owner and review date, and it exists whether or not anyone presents it. The matrix is the extract that gets discussed. It is the wrong slide where the organisation's framework uses three or five bands per axis, because forcing a medium likelihood into a two by two misrepresents the assessment that was actually made.
How to adapt it
First, write each risk as an event with a threshold. Heat above 38 degrees names the trigger, which means the safety team knows when the plan starts. Adverse weather names nothing and cannot be prepared for. Second, put the owning team on every line and keep it to one. Two owners on a risk is the same as none, and a risk that sits with a committee will be reviewed rather than treated. Third, say what accept means in this organisation before the slide goes up. Here it means no further work and no contingency budget, which is a decision worth stating out loud so nobody assumes a plan exists. Where the risk framework runs three bands on each axis, a nine cell grid carries the same eight risks without forcing a medium rating into a corner it does not belong in.
What makes this slide work
Each quadrant is named by its response
Mitigate immediately, monitor, prepare and accept. Those are instructions rather than scores, so the slide tells a reader what to do with each risk instead of leaving them to convert a rating into an action. Accept in particular is a decision, and printing it means somebody has taken it rather than leaving two risks unexamined at the bottom of a register.
Every risk carries the team that owns the response
Safety, Programming, Ops, Gate, Transport, Retail, Food. Eight risks and seven named teams, which is what turns a picture into a set of assignments. A matrix without owners reliably produces a meeting where everybody agrees the risks are real and nobody leaves with work, which is the failure mode this one is built to avoid.
The risks are written as events, not as categories
Heat above 38 degrees and the headline act cancelling are things that either happen or do not. Weather risk and artist risk are categories, and a category cannot be prepared for because there is no trigger to watch. Writing the event also fixes the threshold, so the safety team knows which forecast starts the plan.
Questions people ask
How is a risk matrix different from a risk register?
A register is the full list with controls, residual ratings, owners and review dates, and it lives in a document. A matrix is the one screen extract that shows which risks demand action now. Presenting a register as a slide produces a table nobody can read; presenting a matrix without maintaining a register leaves the organisation with a picture and no record.
How many risks belong on a matrix slide?
Two to four a quadrant, so eight to sixteen in total. This one carries eight, two in each. More than that and the type shrinks past what a room can read, and the audience stops distinguishing the risks that need decisions from the ones that need watching. The rest stay in the register.
Should a risk matrix use red, amber and green?
Only if colour is not the sole carrier of meaning. Quadrant names like mitigate immediately and accept do the work here, which keeps the slide readable for anyone who cannot distinguish the colours and in a black and white print out. Where a traffic light scheme is required, add the label as well as the colour.
What does the accept quadrant commit the organisation to?
Nothing further, and that should be said explicitly. Accepting a risk means no contingency budget, no mitigation work and no standing agenda item, only the register entry. Teams often read accept as low priority rather than as a decision, and then act surprised when nobody has a plan for the merch stalls.
How often should a risk matrix be redrawn?
Whenever the likelihood of something moves, which for an event usually means monthly until the final fortnight and then weekly. The point of the grid is that risks migrate: a heat risk moves right as the forecast firms up. A matrix presented once and never revised is a snapshot of an assessment that has already changed.
How should a risk matrix be presented out loud?
Start with the mitigate quadrant, name the owner and say what is already under way. Then say which risks moved since the last review and why. The accept quadrant needs one sentence confirming the decision stands. Reading all eight risks in order uses the time the top two deserve and tells the room nothing it cannot see.
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