And one time, at a Band concert.....

[Van]

So I go to my sons first big Band concert. It's District Wide ! Hundreds of kids from all the schools that feed into the High School. The whole high school Marching band, the Jazz band, what a cool evening!
Most of the program is complete. The high school concert band had left earlier, " To get ready for their big performance", They start marching back into the Gym. The music starts, Oh Lovely! it's a montage of Danny Elfman movie themes. Personally I think all his stuff sounds completely alike and like a Tim Burton Film if you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all..... but I digress. They get to the theme from Batman, I see one of the Drum Majors come running ti from one door in a Super girl Costume. Then Everyone starts looking behind me, over my head, I turned looked up and noticed a rope stretched across the ceiling of the gym. OMG! Yes there's the other drum Major clinging onto the rope. She slides in, zip line style, to just above the front of the band then drops. Some might say she rappelled, but honestly she was almost completely out of control. I though she had broken an ankle when she came down as hard as she did. Then I watch her wiggle out of the climbing seat she was wearing. Yes just a seat, what we used to refer to as a diaper, and then hop up on a chair and start conducting.
Let's just say my mood went from delighted to foul in about .000002 seconds. Did I tell you she was trailing a piece of rope, I think it's what she used to lower herself down on, and smacked one audience member right across the face. He had just turned to look but luckily got his eye closed just before it hit him square in the socket.
As soon as the concert was over I headed for the floor straight to where a kid was holding on to the end of the rope she rappelled down.

" 'Scuse me, did you rig this?",
" Uh, nope my Dad did."
Really, " Is he a Licensed rigger?"
" A what? Oh no, He does this kind of stuff for the BSA all the time....."
"Yeah but is he a licensed rigger ?"
"Well we took like six hours to get all this stuff up..."

I gave him my card, told him to give it to his dad, and have his dad call me. I sent an email to the Band director yesterday, informing him of the risk he had put his DM in, links to three stories of people dying because of flying accidents, the risk of injury to audience members, and last bu not least the Risk of Liability exposure he put the school in.
I haven't heard a word from either yet and no I don't think I'll be letting go of this one, until someone tells me it will never happen again.

 

[seanandkate]

Why do the words "He does this all the time" never instill the kind of confidence that the speaker hopes they will . . . . :shock:

 

[Les]

Way to go Van! Your intervention could possibly prevent serious injury or death. Isn't it great when you actually have the opportunity to step in and be proactive rather than just reading about something like this on the net and being completely helpless? I'm sure you will have a profound impact on these apathetic band instructors.

 

[cprted]

Way to go Van! Your intervention could possibly prevent serious injury or death. Isn't it great when you actually have the opportunity to step in and be proactive rather than just reading about something like this on the net and being completely helpless? I'm sure you will have a profound impact on these apathetic band instructors.

 

[Van]

Way to go Van! ....... I'm sure you will have a profound impact on these apathetic band instructors.

I appreciate the Kudos but I didn't do it for me, I did it.... for the children.



I will relate that in my letter to the band instructor I stated that I was not condemning him, he didn't know any better. I stated that now he does know better and I expect that it simply won't happen again. The funny thing is that the TD for that school is a good freind of mine that I have known for years. Besides being a TD he is also an actor and is currently in one of the shows we are running. I told that director that if he had asked the TD he would have found out very quickly that it was a no no.

 

[Smurphy]

I say good job. The cool factor should never be put over the safety factor EVER.

Why do the words "He does this all the time" never instill the kind of confidence that the speaker hopes they will . . .

True words true words.

 

[len]

I agree that something needed to be said. However, if some random person walked up to me at an event and started criticizing I might have a similar reaction.

 

[jwl868]

Although I’ve never had the occasion to intervene, after reading the postings on this board over the years, I find myself asking about the flying when I hear someone talking about a high school performing particular shows (for example, Peter Pan), or when I read through the annual list high school musicals in the paper. My mother-in-law told me about a high school musical that she just saw where several of the performers were flown. Knowing the general financial straits of the school district, I asked to see the program and was quite relieved to see ZFX’s name in the credits. (And, in the big picture, it was nice to see the school district maintaining the arts budget.)

And after I saw Wicked last year, I couldn’t help but think the amount of flying that will be attempted when high schools start putting that on.

Joe

 

[ruinexplorer]

Way to go Van!

I would love to see entire school districts start implementing safety procedures for the arts programs. I'm sure that they implement them for the sports programs, they probably just don't realize that they need them for the arts as well. It's great when you can get one school to do it, but quite another to get an entire region to adopt sensibility.