I hope your color gard did not get hurt.
I had one potenialy very bad fly mishap (ok one of a few.)
I toured into an old theater with an old hemp
system. The place was very pourly maintained. The sand bages had holes in them. The electrics were tied off and they just keeped adding instruments. We should have walked on the gig it was so bad. Took us 2 hrs to fly a
drop. Also over the stairs to the basment was a
platform that had some small junk on it. It was hinged to the wall and had some legs that were noched 2x4 that rested on the railing. On the out I went to lift the legs so we could pull the
dance floor. I got them a
foot up (they were 150lb out of weight, cool pic of me floating on one
)
BTW not taken at the time of the insident, this was taken after
load out and yes I am floating by the rope. I could
walk up and down the pin
rail as well as float on the rope.
At 1
foot out I heard a crash and a screem. A rope that was on the wall had gotten tangled at the
grid and snaged on the shelf. The rope was unrelated to any thing I could find. I think it was an old pic
line. It was about 10 ft upstage of the
leg I was moving. It lifted the shelf just enough for it to slip off of the railing. The screem was a young cast memeber (pree teen) who was standing in the door to the out side under the shelf. Fortunatly it just pushed her out of the door and she was not hurt.
This goes to show if you have a bad feeling about somthing unsafe INVESTIGATE, If you cant make it safe the show must NOT go on.
In your case better comunication would have helped.
Most theater acidents are cascade failures. In my case it took neglect on the part of the theater owners, tangled rigging, an unsafe shelf, Me not forcing the company to
call off the show. Or walking off my self. I should have saw the snage in the hours I spent trying to straiten out the rigging.
It was not my direct falt but I should have prevented it!
Tom B