Mr Allen describes himself as "Mr What-if" and has been looking over all the events and writing safety plans in preparation for Queenstown's annual party.
A former ski patroller of 13 years at the Remarkables, Mr Allen has also worked on reducing hazards for adventure racers in the Southern Traverse.
Now, his day job involves working as a safety adviser for film and television crews, a varied job which can see him encounter everything from cars racing down mountains advertising tyres to horses crossing a river.
"I'm the conscience of the producer - in theory, the thing that keeps them out of the media."
And for the past four years as the festival's health and safety manager, he has ensured fire alarms are checked, made certain of appropriate fire exits, and that volunteers are properly trained, along with a raft of other tasks.
"It used to be that people relied on chance [for the Winter Festival] but now we have to build it into the programme."
Saturday's parade posed some "what-if" challenges, but working for Southern Safety, Mr Allen has helped mitigate challenges.
"The parade is quite a logistics thing. It's the only time of year that all of the roads get closed and you can walk around the streets.
"It involves traffic people and volunteers and the goodwill of the Queenstown people."
His work with the festival began about three weeks before the events started, but he said the main organisers planned months ahead to allow time for the resource consent application process.
"It's only for 10 days but it takes months to organise."
