As others have said, insurance requirements often drive this, and as organisers of a beer festival event, presumably you have public liability insurance so one port of call is to read the policy conditions for that.  They may or may not help you.

The wider legislation is the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989.  These are regulations under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.  The HASAW Act includes obligations to ensure the safety of all persons who may be affected by your work activities (in this case public visitors and staff for your beer festival).  The EAW Regulations are broadly drafted and have a very wide scope.  Essentially if anything electrical goes wrong and causes injury you're likely to be caught under these. 

This legislation doesn't make you responsible for a fixed installation of a venue that you are hiring, but it does require you to ensure that any temporary electrical systems you provide are safe.  If your source of supply is unsafe (poor/missing earthing, inadequate capacity, incorrect polarity, inappropriate connections etc.) then what you provide is unlikely to be safe, so you should satisfy yourself of the properties of your supply source.

It's entirely down to your organisation to make sure your overall provision is safe.  For your temporary works you might want to consider having these signed off under BS7909 (not a legal requirement, but a good defence under the EAW regs if anything did go wrong).  I'd certainly be looking for that for a temporary install from a GenSet - to include all the distribution as well.

If you check polarity and earth loop impedance of outlets before you connect to them (a good quality plug-in tester is better than nothing), you can provide your own RCD protection for your temporary installations.  Record all of that in your risk assessment and you've probably got most of the bases covered then.

I would also advise not to be fooled by an apparently 'good' installation or outlets, and still carry out the basic tests as shiny new covers can hide a multitude of sins!

Ultimately if your organisation won't take it seriously then you need to decide if the personal risk to you against any rewards is worth your continued involvement.

Jason.

As others have said, insurance requirements often drive this, and as organisers of a beer festival event, presumably you have public liability insurance so one port of call is to read the policy conditions for that.  They may or may not help you.

The wider legislation is the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989.  These are regulations under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.  The HASAW Act includes obligations to ensure the safety of all persons who may be affected by your work activities (in this case public visitors and staff for your beer festival).  The EAW Regulations are broadly drafted and have a very wide scope.  Essentially if anything electrical goes wrong and causes injury you're likely to be caught under these. 

This legislation doesn't make you responsible for a fixed installation of a venue that you are hiring, but it does require you to ensure that any temporary electrical systems you provide are safe.  If your source of supply is unsafe (poor/missing earthing, inadequate capacity, incorrect polarity, inappropriate connections etc.) then what you provide is unlikely to be safe, so you should satisfy yourself of the properties of your supply source.

It's entirely down to your organisation to make sure your overall provision is safe.  For your temporary works you might want to consider having these signed off under BS7909 (not a legal requirement, but a good defence under the EAW regs if anything did go wrong).  I'd certainly be looking for that for a temporary install from a GenSet - to include all the distribution as well.

If you check polarity and earth loop impedance of outlets before you connect to them (a good quality plug-in tester is better than nothing), you can provide your own RCD protection for your temporary installations.  Record all of that in your risk assessment and you've probably got most of the bases covered then.

I would also advise not to be fooled by an apparently 'good' installation or outlets, and still carry out the basic tests as shiny new covers can hide a multitude of sins!

Ultimately if your organisation won't take it seriously then you need to decide if the personal risk to you against any rewards is worth your continued involvement.

Jason.