# New Safety Guidelines on Outdoor Shows



## JD (Dec 2, 2013)

A little short on details, but I am sure we can add them as they become visible. 
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/53689455/...e-safety-outdoor-concert-venues/#.UpzUUVL4JqI


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## DuckJordan (Dec 2, 2013)

Not sure I like the way the article claims we haven't been promoting safety. The industry in general has. Most promoters have. Its the few and far between that haven't. I love how the pressure is put on production companies and bands to enforce safety when promoters are generally the ones pulling strings and claiming to not pay if the show doesn't go on. Fortunately I work for a company that will fight that fight and tell the promoter to shove off if it ever got to the point of safety issues.

At the end of the day I like that we have a new council stepping up and setting some rules to follow. I just hope more lower level (like the sugar land production company and others will follow them).


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## MNicolai (Dec 2, 2013)

The unfortunate key to this is regulation is required to make these problems go away. 

Purely from an economic standpoint, if it's legal to cut corners, corner-cutters will have an incentive to keep doing what they're doing and will continue to have a competitive edge on safety conscious entities that will often cost more in comparison.


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## zmb (Dec 2, 2013)

MNicolai said:


> Purely from an economic standpoint, if it's legal to cut corners, corner-cutters will have an incentive to keep doing what they're doing and will continue to have a competitive edge on safety conscious entities that will often cost more in comparison.



Then issue comes down to make sure that there's a large enough disincentive for the corner-cutters to change their ways. Some industries, like petroleum, treat as a cost of doing business being easier to pay for the restitution than the prevention.


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## RickR (Dec 2, 2013)

We should all be aware of:
http://eventsafetyalliance.org/


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## JD (Dec 2, 2013)

Although I retired from doing major events many years ago, what I recall is that the pressure to do events in the face of adverse weather almost always came from the promoter. No rental company wants their equipment damaged or personnel hurt. No band or act wants to go onstage when bad weather is heading in. No grounds crew wants to work around equipment in the face of bad weather. No truss spot op wants to climb up when a storm is heading in. I hope any "regulations" written put the pressure on the correct player, the money people.


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## MNicolai (Dec 3, 2013)

JD said:


> Although I retired from doing major events many years ago, what I recall is that the pressure to do events in the face of adverse weather almost always came from the promoter. No rental company wants their equipment damaged or personnel hurt. No band or act wants to go onstage when bad weather is heading in. No grounds crew wants to work around equipment in the face of bad weather. No truss spot op wants to climb up when a storm is heading in. I hope any "regulations" written put the pressure on the correct player, the money people.



So long as bands and stage crews and production companies keep saying "Yes" to promoters pressuring them into potentially dangerous practices, promoters will continue to pressure them. I'll bet a good chunk of that pressure is gambling that occurs via contract terms that try to sort out what happens and who gets paid or doesn't get paid in the event of a last-minute cancellation, as well as who is liable for issuing refunds.


zmb said:


> Then issue comes down to make sure that there's a large enough disincentive for the corner-cutters to change their ways. Some industries, like petroleum, treat as a cost of doing business being easier to pay for the restitution than the prevention.



Doesn't make a world of difference if the disincentives are enforced after people have already gotten dead. The collective goal of our industry should be to prevent accidents from happening in the first place -- not delivering punishments after-the-fact. Punishments won't prevent future accidents because nobody thinks they're in line to be the next Daniel Biechele charged with 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter. They think they're in line to save the day from an unnecessary cancellation.

Our industry is notorious for having incidents that are so vastly technical and organizationally complex that to any outsider from our industry (i.e. a jury or an inspector), these incidents appear to be "unavoidable accidents." That determination is made purely through lack of understanding:

+ Who was supposed to be responsible for contributing factors to the incident.
+ That most accidents are not caused by one, singular error, but several errors that reach an inevitable tipping point (a different entity may be responsible for each factor, therefore diluting the fault)
+ If the person/people supposed to be responsible had the authority to prevent the incident.

In a court of law or lengthy insurance settlement dispute, it's possible someone will be found to blame. That person may be actually the person at fault, though they just as well may be a scapegoat for lack of anyone appearing more guilty than that person.

If it takes getting into a court of law to determine who's at fault, then these incidents will continue to occur. They'll occur because in the heat of the moment, the responsibility is so diluted across multiple entities that no one is thinking about if they're in a position to be liable for any negligent homicide/manslaughter charges. In the heat of the moment, they're thinking about how much trouble they'll be in if they cancel the show and as soon as they do, the giant storms shift in direction and it turns out they cancelled for nothing.

--

I recall Blue Man Group's incident in Iowa a couple years ago, where a number of egregiously reckless rigging practices precipitated a situation where a runaway counterweight set nailed a sprinkler pipe and caused ~$125,000 in damages to the architecture and equipment. All said and done, this was the conclusion:


> O'Connor said both parties were held blameless in the incident and neither were required to pay for the canceled shows.



It's not that neither party was at fault. It's that there were so many organizational grey areas in who was supposed to be responsible for what that nobody could directly be held at fault to the tune of $125,000.

--

I'm similarly reminded of a construction industry lawsuit a few years ago. It's unrelated to the entertainment industry, but it provides a relevant glimpse into how substantial losses can be incurred without any clear sign of who was responsible for those losses, who should've prevented those losses, and that no jury is capable of sorting those details out after-the-fact.


> For the life-sciences building, the architect and its mechanical-electrical-plumbing engineer used BIM to fit the building's MEP systems into the ceiling plenum. But the design team did not tell the contractor that the extremely tight fit, coordinated in the BIM, depended on a very specific installation sequence.
> 
> When the contractor was about 70% through assembly, it ran out of space in the plenum. “Everything fit in the model but not in reality,” says Lewis.
> 
> ...



My point in all of this is that promoters will continue to pressure others to make the show go on. They aren't deliberately trying to get people hurt -- they just don't want to lose a substantial amount of money in cancelling a show. They also are not experts in rigging or stage design, and sometimes not even in crowd management in an emergency. To them -- it can even be hard to recognize what constitutes an emergency. After all, they're just the business end of the operation; they can't be expected to know how well-engineered the stage structure is.

Bands and production companies also aren't trying to deliberately get anyone hurt -- they just want to put on a good show. Depending on their contracts, they may also stand to have financial losses if the show gets cancelled. They may or may not be effective at communicating to the promoter the risks of proceeding under inclement conditions. If they fail at this, the production company may believe they've been absolved of blame by having presented their case to the promoter, whereas the promoter may decide to go on because "If this was really serious, the production company would've flat out refused to continue. They calmly expressed their concerns to us, but since they're willing to go on, why should we cancel?"

Let's also not forget that there's also the venue, who may be unrelated to the promoter. The venue also has a financial stake in if things get cancelled. Not to mention that there's crowd chanting at the stage. Total 'em up, and you've got a number of different entities involved, each applying pressure upon others and having pressure applied upon them by others:

+ Venue
+ Promoter
+ Band 1
+ Band 2
+ Band 3
+ Band ...
+ Production company (for simplicity, we'll assume that sound, lights, and staging are all supplied by one entity)
+ Crowd

As I like to say, shared responsibilities have a cruel tendency to devolve into deferred responsibilities. We'd have a lot less accidents in our industry if mission-critical responsibilities were compartmentalized into single entities instead of diluted across a number of different stakeholders -- each thinking the others will have their backs.

Not that I'm convinced it would be effective, but at least if there were regulations everyone would be playing by the same rules while staring at the same road map for determining the need to make alterations to the structure design or to cancel the event. Fewer opportunities for balls to be dropped between parties for lack of effective communication and delineation of responsibilities.


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## gafftaper (Dec 10, 2013)

Mike it sounds to me like you need to join the Event Safety Alliance. I was really excited about what I heard from them at LDI. Check them out, they are good people. http://eventsafetyalliance.org/


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## MNicolai (Dec 10, 2013)

gafftaper said:


> Mike it sounds to me like you need to join the Event Safety Alliance. I was really excited about what I heard from them at LDI. Check them out, they are good people. http://eventsafetyalliance.org/



Already did. They've been on my radar for awhile now and I'm optimistic good things will come of their role in the industry. I hope their influence will be substantial and geographically broad.

Their guide is not currently drafted in such a way it would easily be adopted by legislative bodies. I would expect before their guide can really take off, it would need to be adapted into something that can be adopted by governmental bodies much like NFPA standards are adopted as codes. At which point it would take potentially an absurd amount of lobbying to get it adopted by the relevant governmental bodies. I don't see those things happening soon though for a variety of reasons, not the least off which is that I'm not certain ESA's intent has ever been to create standards to be used in legally-binding applications.


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## RickR (Dec 11, 2013)

Another route is for the insurance industry to take control. 
If they mandate we follow the "industry standards" then the bosses will pressure everyone to use it.


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## MNicolai (Dec 11, 2013)

RickR said:


> Another route is for the insurance industry to take control.
> If they mandate we follow the "industry standards" then the bosses will pressure everyone to use it.



This may be an effective mechanism for ensuring (and insuring) compliance.

I've seen it work both in theater and in the construction industry where insurance policies provide constraints that are seemingly turned into the rule of law. Where people would otherwise not wear fall protection harnesses, be formally trained on heavy machinery, keep maintenance and training logs, and so forth -- the moment the insurance provider mandates specific practices lest the policies be nullified or terminated, swift compliance seems to follow.

Insurance companies also happen to be the most appropriate financial stakeholders for being thorough in review and implementation of safe practices. They have clear cut financial incentives to drive a safe, accident-free event.

Something that may make this even more likely to be what kicks the industry into safer practices -- if the insurance provider is the same entity providing liability and accidental injury coverage as well as providing coverage for losses sustained due to event cancellation, they are more likely to influence cancellation of an event and not take the risk of injury. If it looks like they'll have to pay out one way or another, be it because of injury or because of cancellation, they may be more inclined to pursue cancellation and not take the risk of having to pay out enormous amounts for accidental injury and property damage claims.


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## gafftaper (Dec 11, 2013)

MNicolai said:


> Their guide is not currently drafted in such a way it would easily be adopted by legislative bodies. I would expect before their guide can really take off, it would need to be adapted into something that can be adopted by governmental bodies much like NFPA standards are adopted as codes. At which point it would take potentially an absurd amount of lobbying to get it adopted by the relevant governmental bodies. I don't see those things happening soon though for a variety of reasons, not the least off which is that I'm not certain ESA's intent has ever been to create standards to be used in legally-binding applications.



In the session I attended at LDI, they really stressed that the point of their guide is to be a manual for anyone no matter how little they know on a topic to make their event safer. Their writing process starts with material written by top experts in the industry, but it's then rewritten by a retired fire marshal so that it's in a form easy enough that anyone can understand without being an expert. They talked about building a culture of safety within the industry where everyone knows what to look for and is empowered to take responsibility for their own safety. While I'm sure they would love to have legislative bodies adopt their ideas, their chief goal is to put safety training in the hands of the regular joe technician everywhere. 

Also note, CB is going to be working with the ESA in the future, we aren't sure how yet, Dave's working on that. But they have a message we believe in and we have a very powerful way to broadcast that message. Stay tuned.


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## StradivariusBone (Dec 20, 2013)

This mentality reminds me of an article I read on safety onboard chartered airplanes. A lot of crashes seem to come from pilots attempting things to save time when pressured by their clients, either on board or at the destination. Typically, they're stakeholders that require the people or documents onboard in order to successfully attain money in some fashion. The pilots are under pressure by their employers to not delay their customers and in some cases there have been disastrous consequences as a result of unnecessary risk-taking in order to get the people where they want to go. I.E. not diverting to the alternate when the weather at the destination is way too unsafe to attempt to land because the idiot behind you in a suit is calling you a wuss.

In these circumstances, a lot of that tension is relieved by the tower control who is not a stakeholder, but an informed third party that can make non-emotional and rational calls when safety is at stake. When you've just spent the better part of a day assembling a truss and are exhausted and want to get paid, or when you've just rode in from a long tour with a few canceled shows and you're in fan territory and need to make this one count, or when the past three bands you've booked bailed at the last minute, leaving you to lose your nut on the venue, or when this is the only event you've booked in months and without you might have to foreclose- there's no way to make an unemotional decision. Everyone in these situations has been compromised in some manner. There needs to be a third party, and to me what the ESA is doing will enable all stakeholders to have some backup. I think the most important thing I teach my kiddos is that safety is rule 1. It's easy to throw that by the wayside when the stress is cooking.


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