Stage collapse at Spanish music festival

[theatricalmatt]

Sad news of yet another stage failure. One fatality, many others injured.

One dead, 17 injured after stage collapse at Spanish music festival

One person died Saturday and 17 have been injured, three of them seriously, after a stage collapsed at a music festival near Valencia, Spain, according to local officials.

www.cnn.com

 

[avkid]

50 mph winds!
Very interested to see any engineering investigation findings.

 

[FMEng]

Every summer, this happens like nobody ever heard of sudden, damaging weather. They had 50 MPH winds for at least an hour and 18 minutes before the accident. Event staff could have evacuated the area long before people got hurt.

I have a friend who is a meteorologist, retired from the National Weather Service. He hires out to be on duty for large, outdoor events, such as Seattle Seafair and the Special Olympics. His job is to warn if some kind of hazardous weather is imminent. The Puget Sound area has some of the mildest weather in the nation, yet enlightened event organizers pay for weather monitoring. For places with more frequent weather hazards, monitoring becomes even more important.

 

[JimC]

I worked multiple stage gigs every year in my active years and the golden rule was once the winds hit 35mph sustained or started gusting over 40mph the roof had to come down - no exceptions. It sounds like people are either forgetting basic safety rules and letting the all important money rule decisions or they are just ignoring them.

 

[egilson1]

I worked multiple stage gigs every year in my active years and the golden rule was once the winds hit 35mph sustained or started gusting over 40mph the roof had to come down - no exceptions. It sounds like people are either forgetting basic safety rules and letting the all important money rule decisions or they are just ignoring them.

Your over all point is accurate, but I would mention not every roof is designed to come down in high wind.

 

[JimC]

Your over all point is accurate, but I would mention not every roof is designed to come down in high wind.

You're right and I didn't mention those because the vast majority of the outdoor stages I worked required chain motors to get them to trim. Thanks for point that out though because with luck this will make the generation after me (us?) realize that this is an issue that must be throughly taught and addressed prior to even loading the first case on the truck at the shop.