Why rigging and flying are not for amateurs. Pink video

[len]

Even the pros make mistakes. The controller person must not have been paying attention. YouTube - Pink Accident - Nürnberg 15.07.2010

 

[masterelectrician2112]

What exactly happened here? I can't tell.

 

[mrcog]

Pinks wearing a steel ring or something around her waist which is attached to a full body harness, when she comes forward the two assistants attach her to 4 different control lines at 90 degrees to each other, this lets her move round the stadium by altering the length of each wire like a steadycam system... One of the assistants hadnt connected one of the cables and the operator started the sequence even after pink gave the X signal to not go, you can also here her shout no when tension enters the system and she's dragged off the stage... She then hit the mojo barrier by the audience at a fair speed and injured herself...

 

[gafftaper]

OUCH! She's really lucky she could have been badly hurt. The fact that it was in Germany makes you wonder if there was a simple miss communication with local crew because of language differences. On the other hand it would be really hard to miss that don't go signal. Maybe X means go in Germany?

 

[len]

OUCH! She's really lucky she could have been badly hurt. The fact that it was in Germany makes you wonder if there was a simple miss communication with local crew because of language differences. On the other hand it would be really hard to miss that don't go signal. Maybe X means go in Germany?

No way the person controlling that fly system was local. That person would have been one of her regular crew, or a contract employee from the flying company, but either way it was somebody who has done that gag before on that show.

As for what it was supposed to look like, if you look for "Pink So What Live" you'll see the effect when it goes off correctly.

 

[What Rigger?]

Here's another thing to consider: it took a MINIMUM of FOUR people doing their jobs correctly to make it work. Each of the 2 dancers had to get their points made, the person running the automation had to take the cue IF it was safe to do so, and Alecia had to hit her mark and give the "no" or the "go".

From the looks of it, offhand I'd say TWO people got it right.


(yes, I'm being a trivia meister by using Pink's real name. Whoop-de-do)

 

[len]

I wondered who you meant. I don't blame the dancers, either. I think they were having problems, but they never indicated they were ready, at least from the video I can see. Other discussions have theorized that the dancers were supposed to sit down on the deck when they were ready. That makes sense for 2 reasons: it gives the operator a clearer view, and also helps clear them out of the path in case something goes wrong they can't know about. From memory, I'd say that neither was sitting when the operator launched.