Howdy,
Well here's some more detailed info as I have been reading story's and accounts
etc, and hopefully some of this will answer your question. This is what I have gathered so far:
The supergrid, as I have read, was a structure that was suspended below the architecture cieling. It belonged to the
house, not the tour. It was part of a huge rennovation that went on a few years back in the
venue. The points for the room are, as I have been reading the scuttlebutt around some of the forums, 175+ feet from the floor(out of the range of most concert chain motors that usually have in the area of 120'-150' of chain)...and the super
grid was attached to the points there. But its purpose, as part of the structure, was to be a sorta mid-way-point structural
grid, between the
house points and the floor, for flying rigs off of. Also as I understand it from reading, a certian well known roof/
stage/steel company up north are the folks who put it in years ago, but that even today they get the spec's, loads and tour engineering for all shows that use it for hanging--so as to sign off on, and approve the
point ratings and loads that will be hung from it and where the points are. This is done per show--and every concert tour always advances a show with a
venue WELL in
advance with spec and critical details on this stuff. I believe that they(the rigging company) had approved points for this show and load ratings. Now--whether or not the folks in-house,
house riggers, or tour folks followed that--it is under investigation.
Apparently, from a post I read from a supposed crew person who was there, is that the tour guys were raising key parts of the large set pieces &
backline that were to be placed on the
deck and that flying them up onto the
stage was the fastest way to get the heavy set peces up there..they were simply rasing them to then
roll the
stage into place and lower them onto the
deck. (Since this is a learning forum, and for those who may not know about this--many concert tours use a "rolling
stage" platform--its a steel
deck/scaffolding
portable stage on wheels, that is assembled away from the main area by one half of the local crew, while the rigging/lighting trusses and speakers go up into position with the rest of the crews. This saves a TON of time and allows the
stage to be set up at the same time as the lights/video, rigging/speakers
etc get done, without waiting around for the stuff that has to fly get done--which can be HOURS. When the lights, sound and fly stuff is done--the
stage is rolled into place under the lights/speakers/video
etc.). But according to the post I read--the set was being temporarily hoisted up with the
grid and lights/
truss etc, and they were about 5 minutes or so from rolling the
stage under the flown set pieces when the
grid gave way.
So the questions that come to my mind based on that information is "did the set pieces exceed the load
rating for that point--or were they & the weight (even tho it was not permanent) even included in the original spec's sent to the rigging company for approval, and also did they use the specified rated points on the
grid to raise the set pieces or just rig something quick to toss the set up on the
stage? did the set pieces exceed the wieght limits on those temporary points?--and was this just a matter of too much wieght in a given area or space on a
grid that caused failure? "
As I have heard--they are still investigating, and several offices (
OSHA etc) and folks are doing a careful study to find out if they can figure out what happened and what failed and why. The equipment is still there and is being studied and documented to try and figure everything out. There is a few pics of the accident scene on the net...and in the pics you can see that the
grid caved in the center area and separated, and everything else attached just fell with it. The
speaker/
line array however were flown on
house points above/separate from the
grid and most did not fall. Lastly--it is been reported that this same
grid had a slippage problem (points slipped or did not hold) about 2 years ago on another show right after the 90 million dollar rennovation in 2000 of the historic space. Interesting to see how this comes out...whether it was the
house riggers, the tour staff or the company that installed the
grid in the first place...and what exactly caused the failure--if it was a
point that started a chain reaction or if the
grid failed or if it was overloaded well beyond
rating (
rating points are usually UNDER rated about 2 times the max weight capacity, for
safety. I personally don't trust aluminum for such a large frame supergrid...I have seen them for years and I know they are rated & tested, but steel beaming and grids--that's solid.
Its good that no one was hurt or killed...only 3 crew with some minor bruises and cuts. But a
point about the media was recently made about this pending investigation--since no one was hurt will the press give this much more air-time or reporting about the investigation? In retrospect--if Great White's show hadn't killed anyone, would there have been such a deep investigation? Hmmmm.... Kinda sad the media and folks who regulate, report and inspect stuff like this kinda work that way. "no one was hurt..next case.." Ya gotta love (sarcasm here) the way a few of the papers print the story tho.. "..fortunatly Justin and Christina were not there and were not hurt". Fortunately??? what about the local & tour crew that WAS there?? They don't count for anything????? @$$holes....
well thats all the updates for now....
wolf
CONCERT NEWS: Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera summer concert tour comes to a crashing halt..and perhaps a premature end, due to the amount of equipment destroyed during a concert set up in Atlantic City today. A recently rennovated 90 million dollar grid structure on the Historic Boardwalk at Atlantic City, that was supporting the system over the stage, came crashing down during set up. Justin and Christina were not present at the time. Fortunately no one on the tour or local crew was hurt or killed, but most of the custom set and stage, and most of the equipment was destroyed.
