https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM16HvCfq90
Are we (and our sons/daughters) safety in massive shows? Note I like electronic music, but hate massive shows.
Are we (and our sons/daughters) safety in massive shows? Note I like electronic music, but hate massive shows.
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Generally modern large scale productions are actually very safe.
The major dangers at large scale events are far more typically either weather related or crowd surge and crowd collapse rather then fire directly, and these things are now very much better understood then they once were (There are actually quite good computer models of large scale crowd behaviour following an incident, it is not always intuitive).
Show stop is now a far more coordinated and planned for event then it was back in the day, and there are typically actually plans in place to move 22k pilled up punters away from the stages and tents in the event of a problem. You will note that the act continued for a few minutes after the fire started, that was probably deliberate while stewards and police were positioned and routes away from the stage checked to be clear of any obstructions.
The surprising thing about that 2017 dance festival fire to me was the apparent use of non flame retardant materials for the decor, you would NOT get away with that in a UK theatrical venue, but the show stop seemed to go off as well as these things ever do.
For me the major danger at such things is actually the one the crowd volunteers for, integrated loudness is usually insane!
Regards, Dan.
The major dangers at large scale events are far more typically either weather related or crowd surge and crowd collapse rather then fire directly, and these things are now very much better understood then they once were (There are actually quite good computer models of large scale crowd behaviour following an incident, it is not always intuitive).
Show stop is now a far more coordinated and planned for event then it was back in the day, and there are typically actually plans in place to move 22k pilled up punters away from the stages and tents in the event of a problem. You will note that the act continued for a few minutes after the fire started, that was probably deliberate while stewards and police were positioned and routes away from the stage checked to be clear of any obstructions.
The surprising thing about that 2017 dance festival fire to me was the apparent use of non flame retardant materials for the decor, you would NOT get away with that in a UK theatrical venue, but the show stop seemed to go off as well as these things ever do.
For me the major danger at such things is actually the one the crowd volunteers for, integrated loudness is usually insane!
Regards, Dan.
You're right, assuming that there are professionals trained and experienced in crowd control. A professional can anticipate problems (like lightning and high winds) and evacuate people to safety in an organized manner. On the other hand, someone who's just doing a "gig" doesn't know what to do and maybe doesn't care.
Here in Chicago, we have a huge music festival Lollapalooza every summer. Thousands of people attend this outdoor festival. It is monitored by security professionals and police. This festival has been evacuated due to weather conditions at least once without incident. Thousands of drunk, high, and severely sunburned people were dealt with effectively because of the training and skills of these professionals.
On the other hand, there is a fly by night carnival that sets up once a year by my house. The rides are ancient and obviously not inspected or maintained. The "carnies" are a motley group of alcoholics and drug addicts. These people are charged with the safety and security of a couple hundred children! What do they know? Nothing except how to get their next fix. What do they care? They have nothing to lose themselves; no money, no dignity.
These carnies set up the rides with baling wire and duct tape - literally! I saw where they had the ferris wheel held up against the wind with a couple of come alongs! It was swaying with the wind and they operated it the whole time. And they must have slept through their civil engineering classes (that's sarcasm) because if the wind would have shifted, the whole ride would have crashed to the ground with kids on it. Am I the only person who saw this? I pointed it out to a cop and he said "it's fine." OK.
So I'm not too crazy about going to crowded places. This is especially true now that my eyesight is failing, and I can't walk as well as I used to. If there was panic, I'd be flattened like a pancake.
Large scale events usually have the professionals as part of the license conditions, at least over here, and comprehensive risk assessments and risk mitigation methods that are checked before the event is allowed to open (In fact the policing cost makes running many small festivals a very dubious economic proposition).
I am off to help run an area at a 25,000 person event next weekend, last year we had one of the car parks catch fire (Grass fire that soon added petrol as cars started burning), but no injuries and the event continued, good planning put the parking sufficiently far from the action to avoid any risk to the public (Stopping idiots trying to move their cars during the fire to avoid them becoming involved was a problem however).
Fun Fairs are an oddity at least over here, in that quite a lot of that stuff was effectively grandfathered in and while there are good operators, there are certainly still some that I would not let my kinds ride, but actually the safety record is surprisingly good.
A problem in the states is that (Particularly with city sponsored events) the AHJ is looking at the politics as much as the engineering and risk management. Refusing to allow the town fair to open because the stage roof is supported by Genie lifts that are not rated for that use and because the backdrop is not on airflow mesh tends to get the mayor on your case....
Regards, Dan.
I am off to help run an area at a 25,000 person event next weekend, last year we had one of the car parks catch fire (Grass fire that soon added petrol as cars started burning), but no injuries and the event continued, good planning put the parking sufficiently far from the action to avoid any risk to the public (Stopping idiots trying to move their cars during the fire to avoid them becoming involved was a problem however).
Fun Fairs are an oddity at least over here, in that quite a lot of that stuff was effectively grandfathered in and while there are good operators, there are certainly still some that I would not let my kinds ride, but actually the safety record is surprisingly good.
A problem in the states is that (Particularly with city sponsored events) the AHJ is looking at the politics as much as the engineering and risk management. Refusing to allow the town fair to open because the stage roof is supported by Genie lifts that are not rated for that use and because the backdrop is not on airflow mesh tends to get the mayor on your case....
Regards, Dan.
You have hit the nail on the head there for my dislike of huge crowds.
I was at the Berlin Roger Waters gig in 1990 which wikipedia thinks had a crowd of 450,000. When it ended and the crowd started to leave it became an enormous slowly shuffling mass of bodies tripping over bottles, cans and each other.
If anyone had have fallen you wouldn't have stood a chance of getting them to their feet again before you were carried away by it. We ended up a couple of miles beyond where we wanted to be by the time we had made it out to the edge of the crowd and escaped it.
I've never been so scared while moving so slowly!
John
Is that Boomtown Nr Winchester? That's where about 80 cars were burnt. Drove past the site this Monday.
What a beautiful surprise, finishing to enjoy a show, and wanting to return home and see the car in flames ;-)
Fortunately I don't drive cars nor I will.
Fortunately I don't drive cars nor I will.
That's the problem with anything in the States nowadays.
Facts are optional in politics now. "Experts" are chosen for political slant, not expertise.
It's the golden age of stupid, and the joke's on us.
I went to a lot of concerts from the mid 60's (Jimi Hendrix, the Doors infamous Miami show) to the early 2000's. It got to where it just wasn't worth the hassle and expense. Ditto NFL football games.
Anyone remember the Blue Oyster Cult tour in the mid 70's where one of the band members sat on a large gas laser and rode it like a mechanical bull. It was aimed out into the audience, zapping half the crowd in the face. Some concert goes got permanent eye damage from that tour.
There was an idiot at the Pink Floyd DSOTM show (same venue) that was working his way through the crowd tossing lit cherry bombs into the audience. A couple of guys caught him and beat him up pretty bad before the cops broke it up. Once the cops found the fireworks in his pocket one of them might have smacked him around a bit before the handcuffs went on. The ruckus made the Miami newspapers the next morning since several people were hospitalized by the fireworks. No mention of what happened to the idiot.
Fast forward to 1999, different idiot, same MO, different outcome. There was a concert series called ZetaFest, an outdoor stadium type show that was held on or near July 4th every year by a local (Miami Fl.) radio station called Zeta4. The venue had changed several times because the shows kept getting bigger and the fans tended to trash the place. 1999 was the only year that it was held at the Ft. Lauderdale baseball stadium. I got there at about 10 AM and left around 10 PM after Def Leppard played.
There was another idiot that thought it was funny to drop lit firecrackers into the crowd from the back of the highest row in the grandstands. One of my friends got burned on his arm from one of the firecrackers. Later we say two rather large guys catch the idiot, and were preparing to smash his face when one of the guys grabbed a hand full of the firecrackers, lit them and stuffed them into the idiots pants. I wonder how the idiot explained his burnt a$$ to the medics in the med tent?
https://www.setlist.fm/festivals/zetafest-3d6b967.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89IMW9CBaHw
Never underestimate the power of an idiot, or the crowd's response to the idiot......or the crowd's response to their team's losing a game.
Anyone remember the Blue Oyster Cult tour in the mid 70's where one of the band members sat on a large gas laser and rode it like a mechanical bull. It was aimed out into the audience, zapping half the crowd in the face. Some concert goes got permanent eye damage from that tour.
There was an idiot at the Pink Floyd DSOTM show (same venue) that was working his way through the crowd tossing lit cherry bombs into the audience. A couple of guys caught him and beat him up pretty bad before the cops broke it up. Once the cops found the fireworks in his pocket one of them might have smacked him around a bit before the handcuffs went on. The ruckus made the Miami newspapers the next morning since several people were hospitalized by the fireworks. No mention of what happened to the idiot.
Fast forward to 1999, different idiot, same MO, different outcome. There was a concert series called ZetaFest, an outdoor stadium type show that was held on or near July 4th every year by a local (Miami Fl.) radio station called Zeta4. The venue had changed several times because the shows kept getting bigger and the fans tended to trash the place. 1999 was the only year that it was held at the Ft. Lauderdale baseball stadium. I got there at about 10 AM and left around 10 PM after Def Leppard played.
There was another idiot that thought it was funny to drop lit firecrackers into the crowd from the back of the highest row in the grandstands. One of my friends got burned on his arm from one of the firecrackers. Later we say two rather large guys catch the idiot, and were preparing to smash his face when one of the guys grabbed a hand full of the firecrackers, lit them and stuffed them into the idiots pants. I wonder how the idiot explained his burnt a$$ to the medics in the med tent?
https://www.setlist.fm/festivals/zetafest-3d6b967.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89IMW9CBaHw
Never underestimate the power of an idiot, or the crowd's response to the idiot......or the crowd's response to their team's losing a game.
That sort of thing is what insurance is for!
The stuff that matters is what happens that you cannot insure for, if there is a fire in the car park I an NOT particularly interested in folks trying to save vehicles. Let 'em burn and let the fire service professionals deal with it, I am interested in keeping everyone on site safe.
As I have had to tell producers on a few occasions, "The show must go on!" is very much a secondary consideration to "Everyone gets to go home!", and "it was always ok in the past" is not a safety case.
And yea, Boomtown, not as much of a special K party as it once was (Thankfully).
Well, except in tower block cladding!
Actually, it is mostly the theatre technicians on the house crews that tend to bring the hammer down on this sort of thing, culturally UK stage technicians are a paranoid bunch about fire (Or maybe just afraid of the fire officer calling them out!). Back when I was doing that stuff full time, I used to have my casuals and the front of house stewards watch some of the station nightclub fire video, drives the point about keeping exits clear home quite effectively.
While the dance festy fire looked like someone missed the memo about flame retardant materials, the show stop was as professional as any I have seen, they even had prepared video showing the routes to the exits, and had the power arranged to keep the projectors/LED screens up until the end, so that part was well thought out, I have seen much worse.
Regards, Dan.
Yeah,. Interesting comment. I also noticed, in ±7 minutes the firemen were there. Here, in Argentina, many DAYS before....
I would think it is far more dangerous halfway home on the drive.
You can't get killed on Stadium Road because of the thousand-car jam.
At that time of night, your own home road may be deserted, somewhat safe. (But single-car off-the-road accidents are very common.)
Midway on the trip, you are still in traffic which is tired or drunk and hurrying to get home. That's dangerous.
Walkers have some of the same issues as long as the path is along/across roads.
Mass transit is different, but we don't have that here.
You can't get killed on Stadium Road because of the thousand-car jam.
At that time of night, your own home road may be deserted, somewhat safe. (But single-car off-the-road accidents are very common.)
Midway on the trip, you are still in traffic which is tired or drunk and hurrying to get home. That's dangerous.
Walkers have some of the same issues as long as the path is along/across roads.
Mass transit is different, but we don't have that here.
That describes a lot of carnies. 😀 Years ago I did a documentary on a group of reformed carnies who ran a Christian show. They were a little rag-tag, but honest. Every setup required an inspection from the sate of Florida. The inspector would go over every ride, I know, I filmed him doing it. They didn't open until he passed them. Florida is a strange place, but serious about carnival safety.
Florida is also home to a lot of very high profile theme parks which may fall under the same rules and Regs. And when one of their rides goes south there is hell to pay, potentially a lot of money to be lost - even if just from bad press.
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