Cast size for venue

[unclesteve]

Hi everyone,

are there safety regulations with regards to the number of cast on stage for a certain size of stage ? I ask this because a Dance School is currently at our theatre and has a cast of 177 + 20 assistants / chaperones . We feel this is high for the size of our stage ( 6m x 6m ) excluding 2.5m wing space SL and SR. As they are mostly youngsters, we feel the dressing room space is cramped as well. The Dance School do not seem concerned.

 

If anyone can point us in the right direction as regards regulations we would be obliged.

 

Steve Henderson

[mi-ul]

Best place to start would be your fire regs - do you have a limit for number of people back stage (including on stage)?

[Gerry]

The theatre licence from your local authority will state how many audience and how many others the building is licenced to hold.

When I was a theatre manager our licence certainly contained these details.

Cheers

Gerry

[kerry davies]

I hate dance school teachers! (statement of interest declared!)

If they can't see that there simply isn't enough physical space for 200 people backstage of somewhere that small (they surely don't expect to fit even a quarter of the children actually on the stage??? let alone dance?) then try this for size:

http://www.wirral.gov.uk/LGCL/100002/20006...aflet_AUG03.pdf

By the time they have registered, at the very least, some 15 authorised chaperones the date for the gig will have well passed by!

Just as an aside the space required for a standing audience at rock gigs is normally 0.5 square metres per person, and you are going to need to hire a hell of a lot of toilets where little 'uns are concerned, they all want to go at once!!!

 

" It's the track about the flowers somewhere on the B side of one of these 14 tapes".

[paulears]

In our old licence - on the old system, our total capacity included those front or back of house. The new one specifies simply audience capacity and not back stage. It doesn't mention droping the iron, either. As the venue now self-assess fire risks, you could find that it is now the venues responsibility to make sure people can be evacuated in a reasonable time - and 200 kiddiewinks might well stretch 'reasonable' to something a judge would find difficult to accept!

[unclesteve]

Hi to all contributors,

many thanks for your replies. It appears, on inspection of our license, that the same applies as it does to Paulears license ie. only the Front of House numbers are taken into account. As a total coincidence we had an impromptu visit by the Local Fire Brigade and they were loathe to quote a figure for backstage even though they were there in person to see the problem. I think in the circumstances it would be wise for our venue to state a sensible figure based on risk assessment as hinted to by Paulears.

 

Kerry : thanks for pdf about matrons, that will put the cat amongst the pigeons.

Love the signature about tapes !!

Just a tip about tapes : all hirers of our venue are told that tapes are NO LONGER acceptable and all audio is to be supplied on CD or Minidisc, However if this is not possible the sound engineer will convert at an appropriate hourly charge !!

 

Again thanks for the help and constructive advice

 

Steve Henderson

Gladstone Theatre

Port Sunlight Village

Wirral

[Brian]

Steve, I'd be inclined to separate the building into two parts. FOH sounds like it's already catered for with the audience limit being determined by the number and size of fire exits and the number of toilets. Treat backstage the same way and do the calculations. If you don't have a copy then get hold of the 'Yellow Book' aka Technical Standards for Places of Entertainment.

[kerry davies]

Doesn't this: http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications...firesafetyrisk8 replace the Yellow Book as far as fire is concerned? If not try this one: http://www.fireservice.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=18599

Lots of FREE info, you don't even have to join the forum!

[Mr Wheeler]

Hi everyone,

are there safety regulations with regards to the number of cast on stage for a certain size of stage ? I ask this because a Dance School is currently at our theatre and has a cast of 177 + 20 assistants / chaperones . We feel this is high for the size of our stage ( 6m x 6m ) excluding 2.5m wing space SL and SR. As they are mostly youngsters, we feel the dressing room space is cramped as well. The Dance School do not seem concerned.

 

If anyone can point us in the right direction as regards regulations we would be obliged.

 

Steve Henderson

 

 

We have had more or less the same issue last week with a dance school using our venue.

 

A little background info first:

 

The theatre has a licensed capacity for 3000 people. This is split between 2 theatres, both multi-format, 3 rehearsal rooms, art gallery, bar, restaurant, kitchen and offices. The main theatre stage is 20m x 10m. This includes wing space and can easily hold 200 dance school 'twirlies' and their chaperones. Backstage there are 7 dressing rooms and 1 green room (can be used as a dressing room) all of various sizes.

 

The issue:

 

The mother of one of the 'twirlies' complained that there were too many people in each dressing. Our Administrator informed her of the building and theatre space occupancy limits and told her we were well within these for the 2 evenings concerned including the number of performers backstage. We thought she gone away happy. Cue Fire Officer visit. Luckily he had visited the venue a month or so earlier and was more than satisfied with our arrangements and Fire Risk Assessments. We did ask if he was able to set limits for backstage dressing rooms, but as has been mentioned in another post, he declined to do so as it is the venues responsibility to set reasonable and workable limits. We came up with a figure of 200 as we have had no other issues with hirers who have had this many performers before and have evacuated in less than 3 minutes before.

 

On both evenings the duty technicians did their usual checks and there were no people using corridors/toilets etc as dressing rooms. Cue visit from our Council H&S officer who had been contacted by the HSE Executive. They had had an 'anonymous' complaint regarding our venue. Again, he was more than satisfied with our assessments and procedures.

 

We have arranged for our Fire Officer to come back and to set limits together for our dressing rooms in both theatres. Hopefully this will put an end to any confusion about these limits for both hirers,users and ourselves.

 

What this may end up doing, for the dozen or so Dance Schools/Local schools who use our venue, is to force them to either hire the venue for an extra night thereby splitting their groups up, or finding somewhere else completely. This has all sorts of financial issues for hirers and ourselves. We may whinge about these users sometimes, but they are a valuable source of income and our venue is a valuable commodity for the community as a whole.

 

I doubt that the dance school knows who complained about them, in effect complaining about themselves, but they may well have shot themselves in the foot regarding using our venue ever again.

 

I will let you know how we get on with our Fire Officer. It should be within the next couple of weeks.

[Roderick]

Just as a bit of reference, in Australia the Building Code requires 4m2 per person for dressingroom space.

There are no guidelines for how many people on a stage though.

[Mr Wheeler]

As promised, here is the update on our fire officer visit for our dressing room capacity.

 

He worked on the basis of 1 person per m2. This gave us a total of 205 for our main space and 30 for the studio space. These figures include performers and chaperones.