Agreed. I hope that the accident was not career ending for any of the performers.
I'm curious how liability plays out in such situations. Something clearly was not done right at some point along the line--whether it was in the design phase, implementation phases, or maintence phase is unknown, but I'm still curious to know how responsibility for such things ends up delegated.
In many touring situations, the road crew is a second set of eyes on the locals work, supervising as it happens. In my experience this is a little less removed in rigging. You don't see the road rigger harness up and check all of the points from above, and you don't see the road rigger watching to make sure every point goes up properly either. 99% of the time it's fine, the local riggers are great. But if something happens (and I'm not trying to say this is the blame of providence local at all.. this is more hypothetical) is it the road guys fault for not checking everything? Does a local rigger on a touring show have liability if something goes wrong? Does a road rigger have liability?
Ringling does not work in any typical way that most arena shows work. From what I have been told, the only local labor that is used is the up riggers who attach the points to the building and does the tie in. Everyone else is with the circus. They do have a rather large production team that travels with the show, but every performer also helps with the load in. Each act gets assigned to a different department to help with load in. My buddy on the show had some monks on one of his electrics crews.
There is a rather large tradition in the circus community of maintaining and rigging your own gear (i.e. your always going to do your best work if you know your mom is going to be hanging from it). Only the people who are on the show know who was responsible for what failed on this show.
The more I think about it the more amazed I am that rigging accidents aren't common with Ringling. How many nights a year are they doing in how many different cities? The wear and tear of the load in and load out on the rigging gear must be brutal. The amount of work inspecting and repairing to keep everything in top condition must be a HUGE effort.
The more I think about it the more amazed I am that rigging accidents aren't common with Ringling. How many nights a year are they doing in how many different cities? The wear and tear of the load in and load out on the rigging gear must be brutal. The amount of work inspecting and repairing to keep everything in top condition must be a HUGE effort.
I'm curious how liability plays out in such situations. Something clearly was not done right at some point along the line--whether it was in the design phase, implementation phases, or maintence phase is unknown, but I'm still curious to know how responsibility for such things ends up delegated.
In many touring situations, the road crew is a second set of eyes on the locals work, supervising as it happens. In my experience this is a little less removed in rigging. You don't see the road rigger harness up and check all of the points from above, and you don't see the road rigger watching to make sure every point goes up properly either. 99% of the time it's fine, the local riggers are great. But if something happens (and I'm not trying to say this is the blame of providence local at all.. this is more hypothetical) is it the road guys fault for not checking everything? Does a local rigger on a touring show have liability if something goes wrong? Does a road rigger have liability?
If recent history (and Harry Donovan's book) have taught us anything its that accidents like this more often than not happen because of a catastrophic series of events. Even when the investigation does choose to point the finger (ex. the Indiana State Fair stage collapse) there are still lots of questions left unanswered the make the difference between at fault parties and those not help liable a very grey one at best.
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