How Security Guards Perform Bag Checks At Events and Warehouses

Bag checks are a crucial aspect of security at events and warehouses or distribution centres, preventing unauthorized items from entering the premises, ensuring safety, and in the case of warehouses, preventing employee theft. Security guards are trained to perform these checks efficiently and professionally to maximize safety and streamline processes. In this blog, we’ll explore how Blackbird Security guards perform bag checks at event venues and warehouses, and highlight our best practice recommendations for facilitating bag checks.

The Importance of Bag Checks

Bag checks are essential for several reasons. Security guards will check bags to ensure the absence of prohibited or illegal items such as weapons, substances, and other harmful items that could potentially pose a threat. This ensures the safety of everyone in the venue and is critical for deterring potentially life-threatening situations.

Guards will also check for any other unauthorized items as dictated by the venue or building. For events, this can include water bottles, which pose the threat of potentially being thrown on stage, while at warehouses this can include unauthorized tools which may be used to commit theft. This ensures that the business maintains compliance with industry standards while protecting its staff, visitors, and assets.

Bag checks provide a critical degree of deterrence at both warehouses and events. At warehouses, bag checks are typically conducted after shifts and are primarily used as a technique to mitigate theft. Through deterrence, they prevent employees from attempting to steal valuable inventory. Likewise, event attendees are deterred from bringing potentially harmful items into venues by the presence of bag checks, helping to create a safer event environment.

How Bag Checks Are Conducted at Events

At the beginning of a bag check, event security guards greet attendees and ask individuals to remove their bags for inspection. At Blackbird Security, our security guards prioritize customer service and strive to make each interaction a positive one. Our guards undergo customer service training to best equip them with the tools and skills required to not only provide outstanding customer service but also handle customer issues and problems.

Security guards will then ask attendees to open their bags, including any exterior and interior pockets, for inspection. Guards will conduct a thorough visual scan of the bag, looking for any prohibited items.

Some venue entrances, such as BC Place in Vancouver, are equipped with metal detectors that attendees must pass through in order to enter the venue. Other venues utilize handheld metal detectors which are waved over attendees. Both types of metal detectors are primarily used for detecting the presence of guns, knives, and other metal weapons as a safety precaution.

Security guards take crowd flow into consideration when performing bag checks. Typically, guards will direct attendees from one larger line into several smaller lines to speed up the line’s flow and streamline the bag check process. For the privacy and comfort of attendees, the security guard team performing bag checks will often be comprised of both men and women.

How Bag Checks Are Conducted at Warehouses

The primary aim of bag checks at warehouses is to mitigate internal theft of inventory. Bags can be checked upon employee entry, exit, or randomly during a shift in order to ensure fairness and prevent complacency.

During bag checks, warehouse security guards will inspect all interior and exterior pockets of bags, looking for any suspicious items or items belonging to the warehouse’s inventory. Warehouses that store high-value inventory or sensitive materials may require a more detailed and thorough level of inspection, including the removal of all items from the bag for examination.

One key step in the bag check process at warehouses is documentation and reporting. Each bag check is logged with the time, employee, and any findings. This maintains transparency and accountability and can provide helpful evidence if any inventory goes unaccounted for.

Bag Check Best Practices For Security Guards

As a security guard, it’s important to keep in mind some best practices to facilitate a positive bag check experience:

Respecting privacy: It’s critical that security guards conduct bag checks with respect for personal privacy. Security guards should be firm yet respectful and friendly with the individuals whose bags they’re searching.

Communicating clearly: Effective and clear communication helps manage expectations and coordinate cooperation from individuals being searched.

Complying with legal standards: Security guards should be familiar with individual venue, company, or building policies and rules to maintain the integrity of the security process.

Regularly updating procedures: Ensuring that procedures are up-to-date and that security guards are regularly refreshed on training is important for ensuring the best service possible at all times.

Blackbird Security guards receive extensive training in customer service, allowing them to provide top-level service in customer, guest, and employee-facing roles. Additionally, our guards are trained in other key areas such as first aid, crisis intervention training, and reporting training. These advanced skills make them not only premium security guards but also invaluable assets to any team of employees.

Partner With Canada’s Best Security Service Provider

Bag checks at events and warehouses are a vital part of maintaining security and ensuring the safety of everyone involved. By following thorough, respectful, and efficient procedures, security guards can maintain a venue’s safety and prevent warehouse inventory losses due to theft. With proper training and adherence to best practices, bag checks can significantly contribute to a safe and secure environment.

Are you interested in partnering with Blackbird Security for your warehouse or event security needs? Get in touch with us at the form below and read about our proven track record of keeping high-profile events and high-value inventory warehouses secure.