Re: More Outdoor Concert Woes- The Aftermath
I guess I'm not too surprised by Cheap Trick's stance on this and would expect more artists to follow suit. And if insuring an event in a temporary structure, the definition of which will have to evolve many times before they get it right, becomes prohibitively expensive they may not get a choice. What I find ironic about the situation is that these are engineered solutions that are catastophically failing and not the tent pole and terrestrial antenna truss covered in quilts nightmares or the speakers on eyehooks, chains and bunjee cords terrors in churches and bars that we typically see so many examples of posted. I guess it could just be the magnitude of the failure or at least the newsworthiness. Part of me likes Rick's idea of requiring these structures to be inspected by a third party entity like many others. But in the end it's another set of eyes scrutinizing the structure (which is always good) and, becauses it's no doubt a local govenment deal, a fee with no liability on the inpectors or the entity they represent.
And then we run into the whole "who is going to pay for this?" The promoter? The sound provider?
What happens when a stage is setup-show time is say 5 hrs away-and the inspector is not happy with the rigging-and there is nothing the provider can do to fix it to his satisfaction? Is the show cancelled? Now who pays?
I have seen fire marshalls do some crazy stuff and not pass inspection. If somebody has pissed off the fire marshall, he can do pretty much anything. In an install, there is time to fix it, but in a same day show, there often is not.
It just depends on how much pull somebody has. In a local case at a church, the fire marshall would not let the building pass because he didn't like the way the drive through was attached to the main structure. This was a school entrance and not the main sanc.
The pastor said they were going to have church anyway and the fire marshall said he would shut down the power. So the Pastor said they would simply have church out in the parking lot (which was not part of the new addition). The Pastor said he would publicly call out the fire marshall by name during the service-tell where he lived etc and the reason that he would not pass inspection and so forth.
The fire marshall passed the inspection. There was nothing wrong anyway-he had been ticked off by one of the trades on the job and was looking for something/anything to slow down the process.
The idea of inspection is not bad, but how to pull it off is not so easy. Who is going to be certified? and how many people will it take to cover all of the outdoor stages on a typical summer weekend? A whole bunch. And will they be willing to put their name on something that mother nature can so easily tear up? The stages would have to be way overdesigned (not a bad idea), but who is going to pay for all that extra strength?
A guy who is doing it right will be more expensive-and the shady promoter will go with the cheaper guy-unless he is afraid of an official not allowing the show to go on. Then he goes after the guy he hired for not providing the right gear.
Yes it could get messy.
But in the end-if the stages are safer-there will be less of a chance for people getting hurt.
The problem I see with the various "sudden wind" issues, is that nobody had enough balls to call off-or delay the show and evacuate the area. If they did, then lots of other people would be very mad at them-especially if nothing happens.
Yes, I've been in the middle of things like that. Luckily nobody every got hurt. It is not an easy position to be in. Easy to talk about later, but at the moment--------------------
Sorry to rant-let's keep it safe guys.
