Stage collapses at festival in Indiana (video footage)

5 dead, 45 injured.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14520194

Shocking video footage.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRkdwrmzYXg&feature=player_embedded

I've worked on things like this building stages for large rock concerts. There isn't much health and safety I tell you, and everyone is on drugs.

 

i saw this on the news last night. crazy shit.

 

zhat looks scary how that thing gets ripped open and blown over, no chance against 70 mph winds combined to:

 

Your point?

 

in 1969 some hippies built a stage and it stormed and guess what happened. It got all muddy and people had more fun.

promoters knew what the fuck is up. They knew dangerous weather is approaching. Yet with the greed mind set.. Fuck it :the show must go on. Its almost the intention of the promoter and government officials to put a stage out in the middle of nowhere farm land, where it is not buffered by natural surroundings to prevent such catastrophic failure.

 

Right at :12 you can see who is going to get crushed...

I would imagine this kind of event would send a wave to everyone to rethink how you structure this.

A lot of people are lucky, you noticed everyone running away on the right, but look at how many people are in front. A flat structure can get pushed in more than on direction even if the winds are going one way. Ever tried walking with a 4x8ft sheet of plywood in the wind?

 

Seen this on the weather channel very sad

 

Why were promoters not watching weather channel.??..

 

hah good point. why the hell not!
but yeah saw this on TV too. very sad because it was said to be a fluke but really in my opinion, they probably could have been more prepared for anything if there were 60-70 mph winds

 

Im sure a few roadies on here will tell you. The staging structure, framing, metal and overall construction over the years has gotten cheaper and cheaper.. While in the meantime they are loading up structures like this one with tons of lighting material .. on the fly.

This is not a permanent structure. Its built in time period of less than 24hrs. Their is no real integrity testing done.

you wouldst ride a roller coaster that hasnt be structurally tested time and time again.

the sound on these stagings alone weakens them and rattles nuts free. Its a fact of common physics.

Cant build something like this and say "we never expected a micro burst to strike." For Christs sake youre in tornado alley!!

 

^^exactly. If it's blowing down like that in what were no stronger than gale force winds then it's simply not fit for purpose.

The organisers of this event should be arrested and charged with murder.

It's not also the fact that the design structure is not adequate but you are relying on everyone doing their job, and people make mistakes all the time.

I worked on the Bigger Bang Rolling Stones stage in 2006 in Amsterdam, and several weeks later a couple of people got killed building the set in Spain. They don't make you wear hard hats, which is quite incredible to think of all the shit that is going on above you when you are working, and how easy it would be for someone to drop 10kg of lights on your head from 50 feet.

I also worked on the Madonna Confessions set in the same year in Amsterdam, and that time some donut decided to let go of a piece of stage and it fell over and clipped me on the bottom of my back. Luckily that time I wasn't paralysed from the waist down..

They have supervisors who watch over you and they are quite strict about stuff as well so it's not a show run by cowboys, but you have to watch. They don't mind if you take a break to smoke joints though, which is quite incredible. I used to drink a couple of beers and smoke a joint or two on the way there in the car, and one of the guys who used to drive was drinking beers and doing lines. When I had the meeting with the agency guy in a local coffeeshop he basically said drugs aren't technically allowed, but what the hell everyone does it anyway so do what you like so long as you keep a lid on it.

It's a lot of fun actually, I wish I could get back into doing that again..

 

:iagree:

 

"The organisers of this event should be arrested and charged with murder."

It wont happen. The best you are likely to see is charges of criminal negligence. In an event like this there is so much scope for buck passing you just wouldn't believe it.

Who specified the structure? Who approved it? Who was in charge of its build? Who signed it off? etc etc

So sorry for evryone affected by this.

 

^^true

Could be the fault of one guy who had a hangover and just forgot to bolt in the corners, or anything...

 

Just found this. Holy shit.
If you run a big event like that then you have someone monitoring the weather at all times. And you have somebody who can make a judgement call and evacuate the arena if things look a bit iffy.
Certainly don't send up the truss spot operators. I think this will change the face of big outdoor shows. It certainly ought to.

 

That's a good photo, I mean obviously it's tragic what happened, but it's kind of arty as well.

I think, certainly in terms of what happened at Pukkelpop yesterday there isn't a lot you can do if a squalline suddenly comes along. They happen sometimes, a rare event I believe but there isn't al lot you can do to predict them let alone evacuate an entire festival when one is approaching.

 

A 6th person has died from this I just heard on the radio, and victims are filing lawsuits against the organisers for negligence. The company are bringing in an outside organisation to investigate what went wrong.

 

So with a spate of this happening I'd be inclined to say there could be a dodgy supplier at the bottom of this, maybe the rigging wasn't up to standard. Where do festival and tour operators buy their materials from, China?

 

Again no integrity testing has been done, unless these concerts are part of the testing and psychological human behavior observations during catastrophic failures...

Imagine tripping balls and having to live with the fact you seen in REAL LIFE, someones head smashed at your favorite rock concert, cause some money hungry promoters dont know when to call it off and abandon ship.... NO LEADERSHIP SKILLS do these people have!!

 

What I'm saying though is that the fact it has suddenly happened so many times could indicate faulty parts, as opposed to faulty construction of the parts/decision taking by the organisers.

Presumably suppliers of the material for the rigging also have to adhere to strict standards, and I'm thinking what with China becoming a major player in the global market especially where steel is concerned and what with China's poor record on supplying the world with dodgy goods/fake products I am just speculating that this might be the reason. Not necessarily China, maybe somewhere else, but China is the first place that springs to mind.

Festivals have been going on for a long time and I've never heard of stages just collapsing in high winds like this before, maybe there have been isolated incidents though.