Rigging Accident In The Us...

[Stu]

As posted on R.A.T.S but added here for a wider audience...

 

News Story

 

Bugger me... I would not have liked to have been there.

 

Stu

[peter]

More than 20 trucks transported the sets and other equipment from venue to venue, a crewmember said.

 

Thats a whole lotta stuff to break in one go. Whats the guessing: Macs, High End or Vari*s?

[smeggie]

probably high ends and vari's.

mac's don't seem to be so large in the usa.

dont know why.

 

wonder why it decided to go just then?

 

messy any way you look at it.

cheers

andrew

[gareth]

For those of you who ain't seen a picture of the aftermath ...

 

Atlantic City grid collapse

 

Not pretty, is it? It's nothing short of a miracle that no-one was killed or even seriously injured, given that there were supposedly 75 crew working at the time of the collapse.

[peter]

Looks like the fixtures were powered on in that picture - impressive if any of them still work.

 

We can only hope that this leads to increased health and safety. It appears that some of the truss has broken, so there must have been a tremendous strain on the rig from below.

[Shaun Foster]

Does anyone know how they will get the rest of it down?

[Rob]

Some very careful and slow rigging I expect - by putting in extra points to the mangled truss and replacing any motors or rigging gear that have been damaged by the shock force.

 

Pretty scary all in all. It'll be interesting to find out what wen't wrong, It looks like the centre of the mother grid has failed, either under undue load, or through points failing.

 

Edit:

 

The discussion on Light Network is suggesting that the points supporting the mother grid failed.

 

live in Philadelphia and just heard on the local news a sound byte from the AC police guy who seems to be in charge of the investigation. He said (roughly) "...The aluminum tubes (read:supergrid) that hold up the sound and lighting collapsed because the chains that were holding them to the cieling came off (of the cieling) and the cieling sustained some damage..."

I paraphrased the above but when I heard it on the radio it seemed like he was trying to say that the motors, assuming they are motors, that hold up the supergrid either completely disconnected themselves from the cieling because they broke or that the cieling of the venue collapsed enough to allow the chains to become undone.

[merlin24]

Looks like the fixtures were powered on in that picture - impressive if any of them still work.

I wouldn't have thought the people who were underneath the thing gave a toss whether they were powered on or not, or indeed whether they still work, in fact I would think that would be the furthest thing from their mind...

[smeggie]

they will when they get around to trying to repair them.

for the moment they'd only care about avoiding the incoming lx bars.

 

cheers

andrew

[merlin24]

I Just find it really bizzarre that there has been a serious accident, and most people seem more concerned about a: whether the kit was High End or not and b: Whether the shutter will still open or not.

[Fleeting]

I Just find it really bizzarre that there has been a serious accident, and most people seem more concerned about a: whether the kit was High End or not and b: Whether the shutter will still open or not.

 

 

Isn't that just like technicians asking about the kit before people? Did someone not do there weight versus pick up point calculations properly?

 

Fleeting....

[Ben]

thats not true, the article says that no one was hurt in the incident, the next set of questions would be about the kit.

 

why ask about people when we have already been tole there were no injuries?

[Stu]

Hmmm I agree with some of the points made here - the kit can always be replaced on an insurance claim, it's the people who can't be replaced.

 

Someone could have so easily been killed in this situation and I would hope whoever is investigating the situation is working fast to find out what went wrong so it doesn't happen again.

 

Next time it could happen during a gig, which would be catastrophic.

 

Stu

[NickLee]

Has anything like this ever happened during a gig?

 

N.

[mark b]

This will be an issue for the lawyers to sort out. As for the people working in the auditorium they were without doubt thouroughly trained and qualified tech's. Who know the risks of the job and duly had thier wits about them enough to not stand there and watch the grid coming down but to get the hell out of the way!

We all know the risks, and no matter how hard you try to remove risk there will always be an unforseen element that will ocasionaly crop up, and a F up will ensue.

I work alot on the continent where H+s is conciderd to be a department store!

The only way I can ensure the saftey of myself and my collegues is to tripple check everything.

never belive the "house technitian" (see caretaker in the oxford engligh dictionary) when he replys "Yes is point!"

Then when asked "how much can I put on it?" and the a reply of "k?" "Yes is point!" follows I tend to look at the plan, half the figure on the plan and do a test load before anything goes up in the air.Even then that is no garentee of saftey. After all how many times have you been sent inacurate plans?

A problem not only restricted to the eu but happens in blighty as well. A certain london conferance and banqueting venue sent me thier plans so that I could "work from them" Not only were the plans inacureate to the tune of 30 ft the maximum ceiling hight was stated witout mention of the rebates arround the edge of the room! my set would have been too long and too high! (better than too short but that is not the point!) The point is tripple check everything and if in doubt ask! If you have no awnser go and test it!

 

OOPS! sorry rant on a tangent over.

not that I am say this event in the states is a case of bad information or bad design it may well be just bad luck.