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Author Topic: When do YOU call the show?  (Read 2093 times)

John Sabine

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When do YOU call the show?
« on: August 12, 2014, 09:27:48 AM »

In the past I have had to deal with shows where the following conditions that I deemed as unsafe were happening but the promoter or booking party wouldn't call the show off.
1) Rain and wind so intense that being on stage was like slowly drowning
2) Ankle deep foam and water throughout the entire room after the improvised dam that the fraternity had built to contain it failed
3) Mosh pit filled with active subwoofers also contained a few dozen revelers and about 10" of water (subs where of a design so only plywood was actually in contact with the water but still... )
4) House electrical panel was arcing because the neutral bus wasn't properly tightened and was actually black and burned because this had been going on for so long.

 I will say that as a result of these experiences I now try to make it clear to any new clients in advance that if I see an unsafe condition that I will shut everything down until the problem is rectified. Also once I was subbing for another contractor and their rule was that any visible lightning resulted in the stage shutting down for 15 minutes and that every time there was another visible strike the 15 minute period started over. That has worked pretty well and is now a standard practice. Anybody got any additional guidelines and suggestions? Until I encountered them I would never have thought that anyone would have insisted that the show continue under the circumstances listed above.
 
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Cailen Waddell

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Re: When do YOU call the show?
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2014, 10:03:59 AM »

I run our risk management work team in our department in the local government I work at. 

A couple things we do, visible lightning is a shutdown, but 15 minutes is not safe, 30 is the national weather service reccomended interval. Talent goes in a trailer or building, public is told to return to vehicles and wait it out. 

We have a 60% (I think, I would have to check the paperwork) threshold on our stages.  Whatever the engineered max wind speed is, we evacuate if there is a gust up to 60% of max.  Also we monitor weather service and a warning with Mac winds at 60% of threshold is grounds for evac.

Any tent over an 8x8 popup has to have a wind rating reported by the supplier, we use the same thresholds for that.

Power is pretty constant for us, so we just meter to check, but if it was a new connection, has to be a real disconnect, no sister lugs.  Connected equipment must have a breaker not over rating of connecting cable.  (We won't connect your dimmer rack with a 400a breaker to our 400a disconnect with anything less that 0000 for example.

Crowd control is not usually a concern at our events.

For our outdoor shows (that we produce), if weather is questionable, we try to make a call at noon on day of show.  We usually talk to a meteorologist at the weather service we use, to check our assumptions and reading of the forecast.  If it is likely it will rain, we postpone or cancel for free outdoor concerts.
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Re: When do YOU call the show?
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2014, 10:03:59 AM »


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