Entertainment Industry Has Unique Safety Issues

Whether it’s taking your daughter to see Taylor Swift or your grandpa to see Tony Bennett, your mind is on the pleasure of the entertainment, not the safety of the stage. But if you watched any of the videos or newscasts of the Indiana State Fair stage collapse (see the attached video if you haven't) just before the performance of Sugarland, safety might be a bigger concern the next time you go to a show.

“That stage was 15 years old and they had 32,000 pounds of equipment on it,” said Steve Lorente, owner of and industry expert who recently spoke to a group of Dixon business owners about safety as it relates to the entertainment industry. He showed a bridle and a span set with shackles to demonstrate the capability of raising or lifting of materials such as sound equipment. He then passed around two shackles that both had the same title but looked dramatically different.

One of the shackles was forged into shape and was a solid, unbendable iron. The other was a shiny chrome piece that was merely bent into its shape. While the two were created to do the same kind of work, there was no comparison as to which one was stronger.

“A two-ton shackle purchased at Home Depot that was manufactured in China, does not have the same weight rating as a two-ton shackle domestically made in the USA rated for overhead lifting,” he said.

The fine print on the Home Depot materials will say "not for overhead lifting or use" but most people run to the hardware store and just pick something up when they need to hang something, he said.

“Ten years ago the safety factor was five to one but five years ago, safety standards were changed to seven to one and now they are 10 to one. Lorente Productions has always used 10-to-one safety ratios which means if we have 10 pounds of equipment to hang, we prepare the structure to hold 100 pounds,” he said.

The Home Depot shackle costs $3.50 but the rated shackle of the same size from Clancy Rigging was $19. One will hold 30 pounds safely and one will hold 300 pounds safely. If one considers the least expensive hardware and then add in the risks of equipment being loaded and unloaded from airplanes, trucks, wind, rain, earthquakes, rusting, manufacturer’s flaws or even mislabeling, there is “an amazing amount of things that can go wrong,” said Steve. “Safety is interrelated with cost and accidents happen because all of the things that can go wrong usually will add together in the wrong direction.”

He cited the rated shackles that have strict testing procedures by random sampling and are “fatigue tested” to one and a half times their rated capacity for 20,000 cycles of their usage.

“Do you think Home Depot does this? However, if you are hanging a speaker that weighs 500 pounds over the head of Barbara Streisand, which one would you choose?” Steve said.

“People say, 'Oh it can’t happen here in Dixon because we don’t do big shows,'” said Lorente, ”But we do. We have the .”

“All the stages are checked by the state prior to the event,” said Dolores Garton, Dixon May Fair Business Assistant who also reported that there are no permanent stages at the May Fair and that the entertainment production work is all subcontracted by three different businesses; Rolling Stages, Lights West, and Speeda Sound.

“It’s common practice to go into arenas or outdoor facilities that have a load-bearing roof and as long as the structure is designed to carry a load, it’s usually--most always--has been certified by a structural engineer and tested,” said Michael King, President and CEO of ‘Speeda Sound’ out of Fresno who has worked with ‘Rolling Stages,’ a company he highly regards, for 35 years on various productions.

“I think the fair is in good hands,” said King. “Everything we use to hang and fly is all designed, tested and certified. We’ve gone away from using all shackles made in China and the reason we’ve done that is there is no way to trace it back to the manufacturer—they just have different standards. We are very safety conscious. It’s important--but Mother Nature has a different set of standards,” he said.

“I don’t think what happened in Indiana had anything to do with workmanship. Nature does what it wants to do,” he said, although he admits if he had been there, he would have lowered the speakers and prevented the show from continuing.

“If your daughter was either performing or anywhere near the stage, you would be very concerned about whether or not it was safe,” said Suzanne Lorente who works with her husband and who also mentioned disasters in Ottawa, Canada, with ‘CheapTrick’ which was the second accident at the same location in two years. The couple that runs the business would know—they are parents of two grown children and now grandparents.

The Lorente company specializes in church sound and lighting systems and says the worst offenders (of safety) are churches. They have provided services to countless large churches in the San Jose area and across the country but also have done many smaller churches all over California.

“Volunteers hang whatever they want to hang versus an IATSE union (International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees) trained worker who hangs something designed by a structural engineer,” Steve said.

He understands the church’s need to be “wise stewards of God’s money” but with his three AA Degrees—Technical Theater, Data Processing, and Architecture along with his BS in Electrical Engineering, he clearly sees the mathematical requirements for keeping safe while delivering high quality sound and service for a reasonable price.

Steve offered a valid explanation for the Indiana disaster including the specifics for older equipment used and overloading of trusses down to the exact pounds and measurements using outdated safety ratios coupled with the speed of the wind. The force to shift a stage seven feet when it weighs 55,000 pounds with 50,000 pounds of water ballast added, is way more than the estimated 50 miles per hour that the authorities would lead one to believe, he said.

“On any one of my shows, when we put up ‘Baby Huey,’ our 40 x 60-foot stage and roof, if there is any chance of a wind storm, such as the one in Indiana, the roof is lowered and the show is cancelled. In my opinion, that show should have been cancelled hours earlier and the stage dismantled hours before the storm arrived,” he said.

“When all the facts are in, I believe the cause will be determined that the stage was subjected to stresses beyond its design limits and therefore will be considered an ‘Act of God’ and therefore nobody will be to blame.

The Indiana State Fair and the state of Indiana produced the event. They did not want to cancel the show and in fact, were hoping for the storm to blow over,” he said. “What clouds judgment is people thinking of who they work for or thinking that their job could be in jeopardy if they make a decision that would not turn a profit.”

The major point to remember is safety should always be considered over profit--from producing a major production to using an inexpensive stepstool to hang a big screen television in your home. Read the label and think carefully on any project requiring hardware, Steve said.