How KC plans to keep fans safe at NFL Draft’s biggest stage (it could have been bigger)

The size of a football field, the mammoth theater erected in front of Union Station for this week’s NFL Draft is the biggest the league has ever built.

But the NFL actually wanted to build an even larger, more elaborate stage.

Months ago, the league planned a structure complete with a second story that could house as many as 1,000 people. But fire department officials say those plans were scaled back during conversations with the NFL.

Such a grandiose NFL Draft Theater would have faced more scrutiny from city inspectors and driven up the cost substantially because of the need to install a sprinkler system in the temporary structure.

“The building process would have taken significantly longer, the inspection process would have been significantly more involved,” said Joseph Ragsdale, the city’s assistant fire marshal who has worked on the draft preparations. “And the cost — just the sprinkler system for that, I don’t even know…we told them what they would need, and they said, ‘Oh, yeah, never mind.’”

The Kansas City Fire Department has overseen much of the construction of the stage, which has been underway for weeks. When reviewing preliminary plans some six months ago, Ragsdale said it became clear that the project would prove too expensive.

“Even with as grand of a scale as they have available to them,” he said, “they were starting a little too grand.”

The NFL Draft is considered one of the biggest and most-anticipated professional sporting events Kansas City has ever hosted, putting the city in the national spotlight as fans come from across the country and millions watch the broadcasts. All three days of the draft — Thursday through Saturday — will take place on stage at the Draft Theater, broadcast live on the NFL Network, ABC, ESPN and ESPN Deportes.

Sprawling across the front of Union Station and stretching south to the National WWI Museum and Memorial, the event is expected to attract hundreds of thousands. From the outset, safety of the athletes and the crowd has been a top priority. Ragsdale, along with Deputy Chief James Dean, the city’s fire marshal, spoke to The Star Tuesday about safety preparations.

Ragsdale said he was “very confident” that the massive draft theater was structurally sound.

“I take the safety of the community and our guests to our city very, very seriously,” he said. “And I think this is going to be an awesome event. And we’re all going to walk away from it with joy.”

Because of the complexity of the theater, fire department officials leaned on a third-party engineering firm to review plans for the structure — and ensure actual construction followed those documented plans.

“So it’s not just my eyes looking at it to ensure compliance with the design,” Ragsdale said, “but the peer engineer is also going to re-evaluate to make sure that it was built in a way that is secure and safe.”

Ragsdale said he walked through the venue on Friday and plans to conduct another inspection on Wednesday at which he will meet with an NFL contract agent who is handling the safety issues.

Fire department officials also will be on site through the duration of the draft, he said.

The fire department waived its permitting fees for the NFL Draft, something it occasionally does for special events the city is promoting, Dean said.

“But it doesn’t remove our inspection process,” Dean said. “That still remains the same.”

Kansas City requires building permits for most construction projects. That includes residential, in-ground pools, garages and carports in excess of 200 square feet and the repair or installation of new septic tanks.

But city rules exempt certain projects from building requirements, including “temporary motion pictures, television and theater stage sets and scenery.”

The city’s Planning and Development Department did issue a permit to erect temporary support columns in an underground Union Station parking garage that sits directly below the NFL Draft Theater. The city required the work to help bear the weight of the massive stage, said Sherae Honeycutt, a city spokeswoman.

She said the city planned for a special inspections engineering firm to review the work before the draft begins.

Otherwise, Honeycutt said, the city’s Planning and Development Department, which oversees most construction projects, wouldn’t have been involved in the NFL Draft plans. She said the fire department generally has jurisdiction for temporary, outdoor venues.

“The only reason the City Planning and Development Department was involved with the structure is because it was on top of a building,” Honeycutt said, referring to the parking garage. “If it had been installed on the ground or street, we wouldn’t have required plans, calculations, or special inspections by an engineering firm.”

Though the shoring project in the underground garage is being handled by the city, Ragsdale said, “we will have personnel in that space throughout the entire event.”

“So if there were to be anything that’s not going according to plan,” he said, “we’ll have direct communication to start letting people know.”

Ragsdale said he didn’t have the exact weight of the theater structure readily available, but described it as “tons and tons.”

“Just for instance, on one of the columns, there are layers of steel plates that are probably two-and-a-half or three feet thick,” he said. “They’re probably larger than a sheet of plywood or two, maybe, at each of those pillars. The amount of weight that’s involved in that structure is immense.”

Besides the structural issues, Ragsdale said, the fire department is working with police and other authorities to prepare for worst-case scenarios at the event.

“There’s homeland security, hazardous materials preparation, a mass evacuation preparation, mass casualty incident walkthroughs and preparations,” he said. “We don’t predict every single possibility, but we try.”

In case of an emergency, Ragsdale said, the fences surrounding the perimeter have a significant number of gates that can be opened.

Sgt. Jacob Becchina, a Kansas City police spokesman, said there will be “hundreds and hundreds of officers” working the three-day event.

“Similar to the way the last two Super Bowl parades were, we made requests of all of the surrounding agencies in the metro area for mutual aid assistance,” he said, “and there’ll be officers from more than 20 agencies around the metro area plus federal partners that will be helping us with security for the event.”

But unlike the Super Bowl parades, Becchina said, the NFL Draft is in a closed environment.

“It very closely resembles what you experience on game day going into Arrowhead,” he said. “There’ll be a security checkpoint, there’ll be a designated entrance. There are certain things that are not allowed in, just like an NFL game, as far as bags and outside beverages, and obviously weapons, things of that nature.”

Becchina said those planning to attend should download the NFL OnePass app or go to the draft website for detailed information.

Those attending in a group should have a reunification plan in case they get separated, he said. There will also be a child reunification station inside the grounds. If all else fails, he said, find a police officer, firefighter or security officer.

Like at every Chiefs game, Becchina said, crews from the KCPD Bomb and Arson Unit will be on hand with explosive detection dogs to monitor activity.

“It’s basically like a Chiefs game response, but like on a times-one-thousand scale,” he said.

Becchina said the police department has been planning for the NFL Draft since 2019.

“A few of our people went to Nashville when they hosted the draft to see that and get an idea of that,” he said. “And then really, we’ve ramped up the last three to four months.

“We’re confident in our planning and our ability to protect the people and in any situation that comes up.”

According to the NFL, the 2023 Draft footprint is roughly 3.1 million square feet. The area will contain 7½ miles of temporary fence lines and 1½ miles of concrete barrier. It takes more than 500 semi-trailer loads to transport all the gear, which includes 168 loudspeakers and subwoofer enclosures, 10,018 square feet of screens and 1,433 LED panels.

There’s also a process in place to deal with extreme weather.

The “High Wind Action Plan” requires the weather to be continuously monitored. When wind speeds are expected to exceed 20 mph, the document says, all personnel responsible for enacting the plan must be assembled. When the wind speeds are expected to exceed 40 mph, it says, workers must lower and remove all video lighting and audio equipment, secure it to the ground, remove the theater curtains and evacuate the area.

“Failure to follow the high wind action plan may result in injury or death of persons and damage to equipment or property,” the plan says.

Ragsdale said that in his career with the fire department, “we’ve never had anything this big as a temporary structure.”

“Any time that there’s a major event, people are naturally a little concerned for safety,” he said. “And so we want everybody to know that we are taking this really seriously and we are really ready for Kansas City to shine this weekend.”

Is there anything about it that keeps him up at night?

“I would say that a few weeks ago, yeah,” he said. “But no, last night I slept really comfortably.”