Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weather
- Thread starterdvsDave
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Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
Closer to home, driving through the neighborhood today and the high school is still using a scissor lift to observe marching band practice. No idea what the rating is for the lift they're using, but I wonder if THEY know.
Closer to home, driving through the neighborhood today and the high school is still using a scissor lift to observe marching band practice. No idea what the rating is for the lift they're using, but I wonder if THEY know.
shiben
Well-Known Member
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
And that was the point. On our end, sitting in a solid building, it makes a lot of sense to say call the show off. However, when your the guy deciding "do I need to go on stage with a mic and say to 50,000 people hey your band wont be on, the wind is picking up", the situation is very different, at least in perception. And maybe it is a loaded question, but its a very real question. No one wants to be the bearer of bad news because the messenger getting shot is a pretty real occurrence (metaphorically here, I doubt literally).
And that was the point. On our end, sitting in a solid building, it makes a lot of sense to say call the show off. However, when your the guy deciding "do I need to go on stage with a mic and say to 50,000 people hey your band wont be on, the wind is picking up", the situation is very different, at least in perception. And maybe it is a loaded question, but its a very real question. No one wants to be the bearer of bad news because the messenger getting shot is a pretty real occurrence (metaphorically here, I doubt literally).
Ric
Active Member
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
People in Oz are definitely watching all these things happening all over the world. I don't think we're immune to any of the issues.
It's certainly not a case of being better/stricter than anyone else.
Hopefully this is going to ensure everyone is that much more careful in all that we do, I know I will be.
People in Oz are definitely watching all these things happening all over the world. I don't think we're immune to any of the issues.
It's certainly not a case of being better/stricter than anyone else.
Hopefully this is going to ensure everyone is that much more careful in all that we do, I know I will be.
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/news/22087-college-student-dies-scissor-lift-accident.html ?
Have they not seen this thread:
http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/news/22087-college-student-dies-scissor-lift-accident.html ?
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
Not to get sidelined into a pissing match but, yeah if it means saving the lives of 5,2 or even one person. If it means an 8 year old won't lose his arm cause it's crushed under a truss that just fell 40 feet, you bet you ***** I'd be happy to walk out and close a concert down.
Not to get sidelined into a pissing match but, yeah if it means saving the lives of 5,2 or even one person. If it means an 8 year old won't lose his arm cause it's crushed under a truss that just fell 40 feet, you bet you ***** I'd be happy to walk out and close a concert down.
After working with the group from STC last year I can Guaranttee you guys are MUCH stricter when it comes to safety enforcement . I for one, appreciate it.
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
I don't know, but I did send the directors an e-mail asking the if they were taking precautions.
That fatality made the Chicago papers. I hope they saw it. There was also a large follow-up on one of the fatalities in Indiana. Apparently, she was quite active in the community. But who knows? My wife hadn't heard about Indiana and barely remembers the Notre Dame fatality.
I don't know, but I did send the directors an e-mail asking the if they were taking precautions.
That fatality made the Chicago papers. I hope they saw it. There was also a large follow-up on one of the fatalities in Indiana. Apparently, she was quite active in the community. But who knows? My wife hadn't heard about Indiana and barely remembers the Notre Dame fatality.
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
More info coming in this morning. Death count is at 5, and the rest of the festival has been cancelled (organizers were saying last night that it would go on, but they appear to have reversed that decision)
More pictures and details here: Pukkelpop stage collapse: Belgian music festival cancelled after 5 deaths | Mail Online
Unfortunately, the organizers have already started putting their foot in their mouth.
Uh huh.... The meteorology reports show this storm system ripping through Brussels not an hour before it hit the festival. I am having a hard time with the "no warning excuse". More on the meteorological aspects of the disaster at JohnHuntington's blog, ControlGeek.net.
More info coming in this morning. Death count is at 5, and the rest of the festival has been cancelled (organizers were saying last night that it would go on, but they appear to have reversed that decision)
More pictures and details here: Pukkelpop stage collapse: Belgian music festival cancelled after 5 deaths | Mail Online
Unfortunately, the organizers have already started putting their foot in their mouth.
Uh huh.... The meteorology reports show this storm system ripping through Brussels not an hour before it hit the festival. I am having a hard time with the "no warning excuse". More on the meteorological aspects of the disaster at JohnHuntington's blog, ControlGeek.net.
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Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
I've just been thinking about all these accidents and the nature of truss. Truss is designed with a male and female that slide together and a pin to lock it all in place. The vertical uprights rely on Gravity to some extent to hold the whole tower firmly in place. The whole thing is designed to keep things from falling down. But what happens when you take gravity away and instead apply a significant amount of upward lift and horizontal pressure on the roof and walls? That's not a force in a direction that typical truss is really designed to handle. Yes you secure it and stabilize the stage with wires, but that's a secondary line of defense. Perhaps we need to look at adding some significant steel diagonal bracing to the truss design?
I'm definitely not an expert with truss, I've only worked with it a half a dozen times, so don't quote me on this. However, the physics to me seems fairly straight forward. If you apply enough wind the basic design is suddenly rendered flawed. I would love to hear more from you riggers and road warriors who have worked a lot with truss over the years.
I've just been thinking about all these accidents and the nature of truss. Truss is designed with a male and female that slide together and a pin to lock it all in place. The vertical uprights rely on Gravity to some extent to hold the whole tower firmly in place. The whole thing is designed to keep things from falling down. But what happens when you take gravity away and instead apply a significant amount of upward lift and horizontal pressure on the roof and walls? That's not a force in a direction that typical truss is really designed to handle. Yes you secure it and stabilize the stage with wires, but that's a secondary line of defense. Perhaps we need to look at adding some significant steel diagonal bracing to the truss design?
I'm definitely not an expert with truss, I've only worked with it a half a dozen times, so don't quote me on this. However, the physics to me seems fairly straight forward. If you apply enough wind the basic design is suddenly rendered flawed. I would love to hear more from you riggers and road warriors who have worked a lot with truss over the years.
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
Another (mostly) meteorological take on things, includes links to satellite and radar of the storm
Stage collapses at Belgium concert, five dead; festival canceled - Capital Weather Gang - The Washington Post
Another (mostly) meteorological take on things, includes links to satellite and radar of the storm
Stage collapses at Belgium concert, five dead; festival canceled - Capital Weather Gang - The Washington Post
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
The problem is the more cross bracing you add the longer it takes to get it down. Cross guying does nothing to stop uplift. The only way to stop that is to guy to the ground. Unfortunately they usually just drive tent pins or similar to attach to. We may need to look at something more sustantial. You don't necessarily need concrete embeded, you could have large water ballast instead.
The problem is the more cross bracing you add the longer it takes to get it down. Cross guying does nothing to stop uplift. The only way to stop that is to guy to the ground. Unfortunately they usually just drive tent pins or similar to attach to. We may need to look at something more sustantial. You don't necessarily need concrete embeded, you could have large water ballast instead.
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
Gaff, you're sort of right, but most of the Truss that failed in the Indiana tragedy, and the other recent ones, I can't say about the Belgian one cause I haven't seen clear pics or vid yet, is not of the pin and sleeve type. Pin and sleeve couplings are common with truss designed for horizontal use but are less common in Vertical use. Most of the Verticals are tied together with a minimum of 4, grade 8 bolts. Yes, you might get a catastrophic failure from compression stress if the entire rig were picked up and dropped by the wind, but I would think you'd need a significant amount of height.
If you notice, almost all of these collapses happen with the rig falling to one side or to the front or back, these are cases where the horizontal trussing is failing, like on the Justin / Christina failure in NJ. Nope these are torsional failures at the connection between the towers and the horizontals and at the bases. and the only thing I've seen that actually looks like an 'engineered structure' failure is the shot of the tower separating at the Indiana concert. the only thing I can think of is that a plate pulled loose from one end.
IMHO the real solution is not beefier horizontals and it may not even be mandatory removal of ceilings. It may simply be more cross-bracing < at the expnse of more hours spent setting up and taking down> and a better, beefier, anchoring system and a much beefier connection from towers to horizontals.
Gaff, you're sort of right, but most of the Truss that failed in the Indiana tragedy, and the other recent ones, I can't say about the Belgian one cause I haven't seen clear pics or vid yet, is not of the pin and sleeve type. Pin and sleeve couplings are common with truss designed for horizontal use but are less common in Vertical use. Most of the Verticals are tied together with a minimum of 4, grade 8 bolts. Yes, you might get a catastrophic failure from compression stress if the entire rig were picked up and dropped by the wind, but I would think you'd need a significant amount of height.
If you notice, almost all of these collapses happen with the rig falling to one side or to the front or back, these are cases where the horizontal trussing is failing, like on the Justin / Christina failure in NJ. Nope these are torsional failures at the connection between the towers and the horizontals and at the bases. and the only thing I've seen that actually looks like an 'engineered structure' failure is the shot of the tower separating at the Indiana concert. the only thing I can think of is that a plate pulled loose from one end.
IMHO the real solution is not beefier horizontals and it may not even be mandatory removal of ceilings. It may simply be more cross-bracing < at the expnse of more hours spent setting up and taking down> and a better, beefier, anchoring system and a much beefier connection from towers to horizontals.
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
Again I'm not an expert, but I do know wood and I know that you can get a significant amount of cross brace stiffening power using a relatively light weight and weak 1x3 cross brace. It seems like you could do a lot by just adding a few cross bracing bars at 45 degree angles. It might not have to be that big or heavy either. Some sort of Aluminum, maybe in an I-beam. Could be fairly light weight and not that hard to setup and take down. Yeah it wouldn't solve everything but if you could increase the stability by 20%-30% with a simple addition it could be enough to prevent some of these collapses.
Again I'm not an expert, but I do know wood and I know that you can get a significant amount of cross brace stiffening power using a relatively light weight and weak 1x3 cross brace. It seems like you could do a lot by just adding a few cross bracing bars at 45 degree angles. It might not have to be that big or heavy either. Some sort of Aluminum, maybe in an I-beam. Could be fairly light weight and not that hard to setup and take down. Yeah it wouldn't solve everything but if you could increase the stability by 20%-30% with a simple addition it could be enough to prevent some of these collapses.
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
Anything you attach to the towers slows the process of bringing it down is counterproductive. You would have to stiffen enough it is going to take any weather coming. I don't know that is possible.
What really needs to happen is for acts and producers understand that you are playing a festival. You can't have your entire show, you are outside, limited resources and a system already hanging. I did a national act a few years ago that required the existing stacks and racks had to be pulled down to allow their system to hung. We did as told and when they came in, it was exactly the same system.
Lighting should be a compromise also. Hang additional mover truss(es) and then anything on the floor. Any backdrops should be set to be able to bring them down quickly or notbe put up at all until showtime.
Whenever there is a possibilty of weather you need a rigging call on at all times over any crew calls in case something needs to be dropped.
As far as bracing for uplift and cross movement. There is nothing wrong with cable guys but they have to be in multiple directions. I have done big water ballast tanks and poured concrete ballast with fork pockets built in so they work but can be temperary.
Anything you attach to the towers slows the process of bringing it down is counterproductive. You would have to stiffen enough it is going to take any weather coming. I don't know that is possible.
What really needs to happen is for acts and producers understand that you are playing a festival. You can't have your entire show, you are outside, limited resources and a system already hanging. I did a national act a few years ago that required the existing stacks and racks had to be pulled down to allow their system to hung. We did as told and when they came in, it was exactly the same system.
Lighting should be a compromise also. Hang additional mover truss(es) and then anything on the floor. Any backdrops should be set to be able to bring them down quickly or notbe put up at all until showtime.
Whenever there is a possibilty of weather you need a rigging call on at all times over any crew calls in case something needs to be dropped.
As far as bracing for uplift and cross movement. There is nothing wrong with cable guys but they have to be in multiple directions. I have done big water ballast tanks and poured concrete ballast with fork pockets built in so they work but can be temperary.
Re: Stage Collapse at Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasslet, Belgium during severe weat
No, but it can and has been done, even at very large festivals.
[video]http://youtu.be/lEuE786z3ZY[/video]
Something that I did like about the set-up in Belgium was that the line arrays were separated from the rest of the structure. I think that large objects that will become pendulums in the wind (line arrays and video walls in particular) must be on their own structures. This would allow for better stabilization of the structure over the stage and could potentially be better reinforced from collapse as smaller individual structures. As a side bonus, the entire rig could go up and down during install and strike more efficiently since one department (lighting) wouldn't be waiting on others (audio and video).
No, but it can and has been done, even at very large festivals.
[video]http://youtu.be/lEuE786z3ZY[/video]
Something that I did like about the set-up in Belgium was that the line arrays were separated from the rest of the structure. I think that large objects that will become pendulums in the wind (line arrays and video walls in particular) must be on their own structures. This would allow for better stabilization of the structure over the stage and could potentially be better reinforced from collapse as smaller individual structures. As a side bonus, the entire rig could go up and down during install and strike more efficiently since one department (lighting) wouldn't be waiting on others (audio and video).
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