The WhatsApp from my daughter on a Saturday night in Manchester made me feel sick with worry
Giving teenagers the freedom to enjoy themselves unaccompanied by adults is far from easy.
We're putting trust in them to be sensible, but also putting trust in places and organisations that are out of our control.
Following the dreadful terrorist attack at Manchester Arena in 2017, it's inevitable that it crosses my mind when my daughter is going to a concert.
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Not just at the Arena of course, but any of the city's big music venues.
At the very least I would expect that each person needs to show their ticket on entry. Surely that's a minimum requirement?
Yet on Saturday, when she went to watch The Reytons at Aviva Studios, she sent me a message that made me feel sick with worry.
At 16 she's only just old enough to attend without an adult, but she's quite good at sending me updates to let me know all is okay.
After an initial message shortly after 7pm to say she was 'in the queue', 30 minutes later came the WhatsApp 'we got let in without tickets being checked'.
It's the last thing any parent wants to hear. How can anyone be policing who is inside and how many people are inside, if tickets aren't even being checked?
Her bag was checked and anyone without a bag was being patted down, but another concert-goer told us security was poor and claimed he didn't have his pockets checked.
Lax security in such venues comes as no surprise to Figen Murray, whose son Martyn Hett was one of the 22 people to lose their lives in the Manchester Arena bombing.
Since then she has championed the call for 'Martyn's Law', which would bring in legislation to better protect venues from terrorism.
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill is designed to improve public safety by requiring all venues with a capacity of more than 200 to take simple steps to ensure they have a plan in place in case of an attack on their premises.
Following a long-running, heartfelt and determined campaign by Figen - backed by the Manchester Evening News - it passed through the commons in December.
Once it's been signed by the King, there'll be a two-year implementation period for venues to become fully compliant.
After that period has passed people can face prosecution for not keeping customers and staff safe if something bad happens and they are seen not to have done what they should have done.
Responding to tickets not being checked at Aviva, Figen said: "Martyn's Law is about to become official legislation over the next few weeks. This will mean that venues up and down the country will have to step up their security provision to keep staff and customers safe from harm. At the moment security at venues is a recommendation only.
"Whilst a lot of venues are busy preparing for the legislation and have significantly increased and improved their security measures, incidences of tickets not being checked, bags not being searched and security measures being poor will still happen.
"The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill - Martyn's Law - will change this. Once the legislation is in place, it will empower the general public to ask for better security if they feel it is somewhat lacking. The general public will have a legal right to be kept safe from harm."
A spokesperson for Aviva Studios, the home of Factory International, said: "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We take the security of guests at our venue extremely seriously. We are reviewing the protocol for the evening in question."
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