Standing Regulations

[Ali2580]

A venue or part of the school has a restriction on how many people are allowed to be in that part of the building due to fire regulations. (E.g. if there was a fire, everyone was able to get out and not a stampede.)

 

The best way to do it is hold a risk assesment on the venue or area where the event will take place and make sure there is adequate fire exits for all those in the venue. Your best option (if possible) is to phone up the local fire & rescue service and they will come out to ensure everything is safe for it.

[paulears]

Sorry Ali - they don't really do that any longer since the move to self-certification. They can still be pursuaded to come out, but as venues now basically sign a statement saying 'they' have carried out the risk assessment and consider it safe, the onus on safety visits has changed quite a lot. I firmly believe that since Hillsborough the responsibility for disasters has been gradually been given to people who may not have the skills to really shoulder such a grave responsibility, with the authorities being able to distance themselves.

 

As I mentioned earlier - the 'numbers' thing in education is old. For instance, in a college, there is no longer any method of determining how many people are even in the building - especially with everyone running outside for fag breaks every few minutes. Open access in areas with low crime rates is very common. Some places have rigid central registration policies for staff students and visitors - some don't.

[w/robe]

I firmly believe that since Hillsborough the responsibility for disasters has been gradually been given to people who may not have the skills to really shoulder such a grave responsibility, with the authorities being able to distance themselves.

 

I could not agree more. The question is not about safety and competance any more it is too often about where the buck stops.

[Simon Lewis]

The question is not about safety and competance any more it is too often about where the buck stops.

 

I agree that this is how it may seem - or may even be in practice.

However, I can also see that getting a building's management to take 'ownership' of fire safety, rather than relying on "the fire brigade said it was OK 10 years ago" has definite merit.

 

Simon

[Martano]

Hi,

 

I had a similar problem when I tried to organise a Battle of the Bands at my school. The technician explained the problem saying "the school is only licenced to hold a seated audience for a performance", but I am not sure whether this was totally correct. I don't know if it was an insurance issue, or a fire safety issue or something completely different.

 

Anyway, said technician (who was a computer technical) oversaw all the technical stuff in the school had never worked an event of this scale so we had bigger issues to deal with... like explaining to her why we need to use the stage and why we need some light on the stage.

 

I felt in this case it was best to drop it and concentrate on the more important issues!

 

Martin

[adam_cookson]

About 3 years ago at my previous High School we had this problem,

what we did was we made the stage smaller (it was one you built to your own spec) and reduced the seating space between aisle's and moved them to the upper level of the hall (the hall went down 3 steps to the floor level to the original seating area) we moved the front 6 rows, moving them to the back and had plenty of space up front for dancing and the "mosh pits" and it was all still to the H & S within school.

 

Maybe you could suggest that?

 

We also had the Fire inspector in on a regular visit and while he was in the hall asked what production we was doing and explained it was a Rock Concert for Charity and asked why they were space at the front to which we explained about the dancing etc and all he said was make sure they know where the fire exits are and that you stick to your seating Limit.

[Rob_Beech]

The fire inspector on hearing that it was a rock concert asked what the space at the front was for?

 

Goodness me nobody is safe.

[J Pearce]

It does a good job of illustrating how far abstracted from the real world the paper writers are.

[David A]

While doing a similar exercise here in sunny Australia and scouring all the rules and regulations, there is a clause which states that state schools and other premises "under the Crown" are exempt from complying with H&S regulations.No tagging, no exit signs,etc are mandatory, strange but true.

[adamharman]

Apparently, according to my music teacher, the school doesn't have the right paperwork - I'm assuming to do with fire regs - to host an event where people can stand up.

 

So my question is: What are the regulations regarding standing/seating at concerts? Is it a simple case of asking for an inspection and then you are covered if anything happens? Is it free?!

 

If the "right paperwork" means an entertainment licence, then they should have one for any event they are selling tickets for, regardless of seated or standing.

 

If it means the licence only gives a seating capacity, not standing, then that's probably because the school only provided that information when the licence was issued and had never considered not having seats. A variation to the licence is usually easy enough to obtain from your local authority licensing department. I know community halls are exempt from licence fees, schools may well be too.

 

My past experience of fire officers when they used to do an annual inspection, was that their main concern was people being able to exit the building safely. They always considered that chairs were an obstacle to this, so providing you have enough clearly signed exits, the standing capacity was generally much higher than seated.

[Addyace]

quite, its actually 3.3 persons per sq m

Rubbish (again)

 

Where are these stupid numbers coming from?

 

 

Dude you are saying Rubbish. and you don't know the answer.

How much do you know about concerts?

We are finding out the solutions here. If you know the answer put in the number.

And I beleive that what we are talking about is the standing area (not including Stage & FOH)

[Bryson]

Dude you are saying Rubbish. and you don't know the answer.

How much do you know about concerts?

 

 

From Mark's profile:

 

Was head in house engineer in live music / comedy / club venue for about 10 years doing sound & a bit of lighting.

 

So, I'm guessing that the answer is: a lot more than you.

 

The point Mark is trying to make is that there is no blanket "this many people per sq ft" figure. There are too many variables to consider.

 

In all seriousness: if you don't understand these things, please don't post, and certainly don't pull figures out the air - this stuff matters.

[MarkPAman]

Dude you are saying Rubbish. and you don't know the answer.

How much do you know about concerts?

 

The point Mark is trying to make is that there is no blanket "this many people per sq ft" figure. There are too many variables to consider.

 

Thanks Matt

 

In my younger days I worked for 18 months for a live music club that was 4 floors up, with one entrance & one fire exit (get-ins were fun!). I later worked in a club on the ground floor with entrance + 4 fire exits. Despite having only about half the floor area, the second one had a larger capacity.

 

In those days the fire officer would have had a big part in working out numbers, today it's the venue management who have to do this, but there's a lot more to it than multiplying floor area by 3, 3.3 or any other number.