We ran a full perimeter lockdown drill at 2200 last night and found two teams missed radio code confirmations on first pass. I’m tightening bag-check standards and retraining on call-and-response, but I’m curious what cadence other museums use for after-hours scenarios — monthly, biweekly, or tied to exhibition changeovers?
Do you rotate channels during drills to catch the classic ‘left on A when the shift is on B’ miss? We’ve had good results with micro-drills: a 5-minute radio-only “call-and-response” at close twice a week, plus one full after-hours scenario per quarter with a couple of rotating injects. It’s like flossing — short and frequent beats heroic monthly sessions.
But at 2200 we plant a single ‘red tag’ on a random exit and require posts to include the tag code in their first ‘call-and-response’; if someone misses it, we know they didn’t physically touch the door and they lead the next drill. We still do full scenarios monthly, but the tag made the confirmations stick; the only caveat is it needs one extra runner after close, which may or may not fit your staffing.
And at ‘2200’ we run a five-minute dark-gallery sweep and require a single challenge word repeated verbatim before any location, then we record the net and play back the first minute on the spot so crews hear missed confirmations. Monthly works for us, with one unannounced during changeovers to keep people honest — if you try the quick playback, it tightens those first-pass radio checks fast.