Les
Well-Known Member
Does anyone ever really panic and rush for the exits when Les' whoop-whoop alarms go off? It seems to me the alarms have become so frequent and ubiquitous as to be totally disregarded in most cases. Aka "boy who cried wolf" syndrome. Except in an institutional setting where proper procedure is drilled (as in fire drilled) into the participants. Now IF I received a text or Twitter message on my iPhone telling me there was a fire, I might consider evacuating. There's an urban myth here in Las Vegas that goes, "If it's a woman's voice, you can ignore it. However, if a male voice tells you to evacuate, do it!" After twenty years working in casinos, I've never heard the male voice. FWIW.
See also this thread Building Jurisdiction After Fire Alarm which I've been searching for all day, and finally found. Me, 1; CB's search, 0.
It's kind of 50/50.
One time we were in the middle of Annie Get Your Gun while the House Manager was cleaning up in the lobby. As he was lifting the lid off one of the trashcans, he apparently smacked a pull station, knocking it off the wall and causing 'my' whoop whoop alarm. Of course, not knowing the exact situation, we proceeded as if the alarm was real while the actors left the stage and I manually brought up the house lights while leaving the board en cue. The audience was reluctantly getting up and heading toward their exits (some may have even already exited through a side door) when one of the directors came from the lobby saying that it was a false alarm. Everyone came back (I assume) and we completed the show. I believe a fire marshal came and walked the building during the rest of the show, but I'm kind of surprised that we just started back like that. It was obviously a false trigger and I'm sure that pull station was lighting up on the control panel, but I'm not a fan of taking these matters and assumptions in to our own hands.
Overall, I feel like the evac would have went very well had it been completed. I was impressed that no one panicked (though the reaction was more of a "wait and see what the guy next to me does before I move" sort of thing).
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I thought horns and strobes were pretty common in the house. I think it's a catch-22 though. People may ignore the alarm, but on the other hand it's probably hard to make a "there's definitely a fire" announcement without really freaking people out. I think I'd rather have horns/strobes in the auditorium. That way, at least, I am not solely responsible for keeping people "in the loop". As an audience member, I'd rather not have to rely on the house staff to tell me there's a fire (if there are no horns and strobes in the house, how do you notify an audience? How about the hearing impaired?). If no one responds to an official alarm, you can supplement it with an announcement (assuming it can be heard), or, the sight of the ushers opening the auditorium doors and the house lights coming up usually gets them to move. Now that I think back, no one really took the alarm seriously until I brought the house lights up. I guess that's an official "this show is stopping" signal to them. Saying there are "technical difficulties" may not carry enough urgency. "An emergency has been detected in the building", while scary and mysterious, may be a better choice.
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