Purpose: Young people drinking to extreme drunkenness is a source of concern for policy makers and health promoters. There are a variety of community groups who appear to respond to the alcohol-related problems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the working practices and relationships among local community groups as part of the pre-intervention context-assessment process. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on the narratives of nine community workers and ten venue managers the authors examine the community level approach to inform the choice of interventions to reduce risky drinking practices and community wide alcohol-related harm. Findings: There was considerable agreement across the community workers and venue managers about the nature of risk for young people in the night time economy (NTE). Two central themes of "perceived risk" and "management of risk" emerged from the data. Further, the community workers and venue managers identified different high-risk locations and strategies to improve their ability meet the needs of young people experiencing risk in the NTE. The local authorities, community organisations and night time operators adopted a broad proactive and connected approach to develop a coherent strategy to achieve new measures of safety in the NTE. Originality/value: Applying the social ecological model to provide a framework for the understanding of the social, environmental and political factors that influence alcohol use in young people.