The short answer
Landmark Event Staffing Services is a real and substantial company, and the first thing worth knowing about it is something most comparison pages leave out: it has not been an independent firm since 2023.
Landmark was co-founded by Pete Kranske and Mike Harrison, with branch operations described as spanning from Western Pennsylvania to Northern California. Its specialties are event staffing, parking, guest services, 24-hour security staffing, ticket takers, consulting, and ushering, serving major professional sporting events, NCAA Division I athletics, concerts, and special events. That is a crowd-management and guest-services business first, with licensed security staffing as one service line inside it.
On March 13, 2023, Allied Universal announced it had acquired Landmark, describing it as "a comprehensive event security and guest services company supporting a wide range of venue and event clients nationally." Co-founder Mike Harrison framed it as "combining two of the industry's leading event staffing companies." Today the Landmark web domain redirects to Allied Universal's event services page. The Landmark name still appears on hiring listings across a number of markets, but the buying experience now routes through the largest contract security organization in North America.
That matters more than any feature-by-feature table, because it changes what you are actually signing up for. Engaging Landmark today means engaging enterprise event services: a sales conversation, a scope document, a proposal, and a negotiated agreement.
Calvis is a different instrument. Calvis is a marketplace, not a security agency. It matches you with independently licensed local security agencies, shows each agency's flat hourly rate before you book, and lets you staff a single date without a contract cycle. If your need is one concert, one festival weekend, one gala, or a handful of dates across a season, the enterprise path carries overhead you will pay for and not use.
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What Landmark Event Staffing Services actually does
"Event staffing" and "event security" get used interchangeably in marketing copy, and they are not the same product. Landmark sits closer to the first than the second, and understanding that distinction is most of the decision.
Guest services is the core, not an add-on
Look at Landmark's own list of specialties and the shape becomes obvious: parking, guest services, ticket takers, ushering, consulting, and 24-hour security staffing. Only one of those is a security post. The rest describe the people who move a crowd from the parking lot to the seat and back out again.
That is a genuinely valuable thing to sell. A large public assembly venue does not want three vendors with three uniform standards, three supervisor chains, and three invoices covering one gate. Landmark's pitch was one operational structure across the whole guest journey, and that is exactly the problem a stadium operator has.
Built for venues with a calendar
Professional sports, NCAA Division I athletics, and concert venues share a defining trait: they run a repeating schedule in a fixed building. That model rewards a standing workforce that knows the specific site, which gates back up in the third quarter, where the medical suites sit, how egress changes when the stage is in the round. Landmark grew by building that kind of local bench market by market.
Now inside Allied Universal Event Services
Post-acquisition, the capability set on offer is broader than what a mid-size event staffing firm could field alone. Allied Universal's event services line advertises crowd management, event security staffing, event special services and consulting, a unified command center, temporary video surveillance, corporate event security, and Red Team audits. For a venue operator, that is a deeper toolkit than most standalone crowd-management firms can bring.
It also means the procurement behaves like enterprise procurement. Allied Universal does not publish rate cards for event work. Pricing comes through a contact process and a proposal. We are not going to invent a number, and you should distrust any page that quotes one.
Where Landmark is the better choice
A comparison that concedes nothing is not worth reading. Here is where we would tell you to go with Landmark or Allied Universal Event Services rather than a marketplace.
You operate a venue with a season. An arena, ballpark, amphitheater, or college athletics program running a repeating home schedule needs institutional memory of the building. A standing contract builds that. Fresh crews per date do not.
You need guest services bundled with security. If the same vendor must supply ushers, ticket takers, and parking attendants under one supervisory chain alongside licensed officers, that is precisely Landmark's model and a marketplace is not built to replace it. Our guide on staffing agencies versus security agencies walks through why those are structurally different businesses.
You are deploying hundreds of positions on one date. Large-scale event deployments need a deep bench, a check-in and briefing process, radio discipline, and layered command. Firms that do this every weekend are good at it.
You want a command center and surveillance layered on top. The unified command center, temporary video, and Red Team audit offerings are real capabilities a marketplace does not provide. If your event risk profile justifies them, that is an argument for the enterprise vendor.
You are running a formal RFP. Public universities, municipalities, and large institutions that must award competitively with bonding, insurance certificates, and prevailing-wage compliance need a bidder built to answer that paperwork. Allied Universal competes in that arena constantly. If that is you, read RFP versus instant booking before you start.
If two or more of those describe your situation, stop comparing and start a procurement process.
Where the enterprise event-staffing model works against you
The same structure that serves a forty-date home season poorly serves a single Saturday.
Pricing discovery costs you weeks
There is no published rate to check. Getting a number requires a sales conversation, a scope discussion, and a proposal cycle. For an event nine days out, that timeline is longer than your lead time, and buyers routinely learn the rate only after the window to compare alternatives has closed.
The commitment does not scale down
Contract event services are structured for clients with an ongoing calendar. If you host two events a year, you are being asked into a relationship sized for someone who hosts eighty.
An acquisition changes the company you researched
This is the specific risk with Landmark. If you read a review, got a referral, or worked with a Landmark branch before 2023, the operating context has changed. Local teams and supervisors often carry forward, and frequently that continuity is real. But the escalation path, the contracting entity, and the pricing structure now sit inside a much larger organization. Ask directly who your account contact is, what changed in your market, and which entity is on the agreement. Our Allied Universal alternatives guide covers what buyers commonly run into with the parent organization.
One vendor means one answer
In a contract relationship, if the assigned crew is not working out, your remedy is a conversation with an account manager. You do not have a second qualified agency already vetted and ready for the next date.
Where the Calvis marketplace fits
Calvis is a marketplace that connects customers with licensed security agencies. It does not employ guards and it is not the security provider. What it removes are the two things that make one-off event coverage painful: finding qualified local agencies, and finding out what they charge.
You see the rate before you book
Each agency's flat hourly rate is visible up front and priced by post type, so unarmed event coverage, armed officers, and specialized posts each carry their own number. No proposal cycle to learn the price. Our event security cost guide breaks down what actually moves that number.
You compare several vetted agencies, not one vendor
Rather than negotiating with a single firm, you see multiple qualified local options for the same date side by side and choose on rate, credentials, and availability.
Licensing is verified before the officer arrives
We only partner with licensed agencies. Agency licenses and individual guard registrations are verified against state regulator databases as a condition of appearing on the marketplace, and every guard placed through Calvis holds a current license issued by the state where the event happens. Credentials and GPS-verified patrol records are visible in your dashboard. Licensing always belongs to the agency, never to Calvis.
No long-term contract to start
Book a single shift, one event date, a festival weekend, or recurring coverage. There is no annual minimum required to begin. Short-notice dates are a normal case here rather than an exception.
Security posts, not guest services
Worth stating plainly as a limitation: Calvis matches you with licensed security coverage. It does not supply ushers, ticket takers, valet, or parking attendants. If your event needs those roles bundled under one supervisor, that is a point in Landmark's column, not ours.
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Head-to-head
| Factor | Landmark Event Staffing Services | Calvis marketplace |
|---|---|---|
| Business model | Event staffing and guest services firm employing its own workforce | Marketplace matching you with independently licensed local agencies |
| Ownership | Independent until acquired by Allied Universal in March 2023 | Independent marketplace network of vetted local agencies |
| Core offering | Crowd management, guest services, parking, ushering, ticket takers, security staffing | Licensed security posts only |
| Pricing | Quote-based through proposal or RFP; not published | Flat hourly rates shown before you book |
| Time to a number | Sales and proposal cycle | Immediate |
| Contract minimum | Structured for ongoing venue relationships | None required to start |
| Best fit | Stadiums, arenas, NCAA athletics, repeating seasons, formal RFPs | One-off events, festivals, corporate and private events, short notice |
| Command center and temporary surveillance | Available through Allied Universal Event Services | Not offered |
| Choice of provider | One vendor | Multiple vetted agencies compared side by side |
| Credential visibility | On request | Guard licenses and GPS patrol records in your dashboard |
| Scaling down | Constrained by contract structure | Book only the hours you need |
The honest read: these two are rarely competing for the same job. One is built for a venue with a calendar and a full guest-services scope. The other is built for a buyer with a date and a security requirement.
How to choose for your specific event
A single concert, festival, or private event. You want rate transparency and speed, not a procurement cycle. Compare vetted local agencies and book the hours you need. Start by sizing the job with how many security guards you need for an event before you price anything.
A corporate function, gala, or grand opening. Usually a small, professional-presentation post count over a few hours. An enterprise event-services vendor is heavy machinery for this, and you will see the marketplace rate immediately.
A stadium, arena, or college athletics season. Run a formal procurement and put Allied Universal Event Services, and by extension Landmark's local operation, in the bid set alongside other national and regional firms. Pressure-test supervisor ratios, radio and command structure, replacement response times, and how the local branch is staffed today rather than what the pre-acquisition resume says.
A multi-day festival on a bare site. This can go either way. If you need bundled parking and guest services, one integrated vendor wins. If you need licensed security posts only and want to compare rates, the marketplace is faster and usually cheaper.
Short-notice or emergency coverage. The procurement path is structurally too slow for this. On-demand booking exists for exactly this case.
Whichever direction you go, three checks apply universally. Confirm the agency license through the state regulator rather than a brochure. Confirm each officer's individual registration for the specific post type. Match the contract length to the actual job rather than a vendor's default term. Our guide on how to vet a security guard company covers the rest.
For a wider view of this category, see our comparison of Calvis and Andy Frain Services, our roundup of the best event security companies, and published guard pricing for what coverage typically costs by post type.