On July 24, 19 concertgoers were killed as a result of a stampede in an entrance tunnel to the Love Parade festival in Duisburg, Germany…"When I heard about what happened in Germany I was very surprised. That's just not supposed to happen anymore," said Ron Coté, principal life safety engineer at the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)…Foot traffic in both directions was being funneled through an unused railway tunnel. "That's something that the codes would have provided for," says Coté. "It would have anticipated a scenario about turning people away." …The NFPA code [also] mandates that in the event of an emergency, "light projection" systems must be turned off and ambient lighting systems must be turned on. A large projection screen through which an emergency coordinator could give instructions to a crowd during an emergency evacuation might contribute significantly to avoiding panic. However, says Coté, "Using a screen to deliver emergency messaging might be a good idea, but we can't write codes for things like projection screens, since not every venue is going to have them. The codes have to be written in such a way as to be able to be applied to a very broad range of places." But that could change in the future. Richard Roux, senior electrical engineer at NFPA, says future changes to the code could conceivably incorporate video projection, as long as those systems are fixed elements of the AV system in a venue. A good example would be the jumbo video screens in sports stadiums, rather than itinerant projection systems that travel with a touring act. However, in order to meet the basics of the code into which they could be written, those screens would also have to be UL-rated for emergency notification applications. That's an expensive step that not all manufacturers might be willing to undertake. What is already changing is the integration of video and messaging boards in large-scale venues. Jack Wrightson, a principal at AV and messaging systems designer WJHW, says it's become a standard practice for them to tie ribbon boards and captioned video displays into both the emergency power system and the emergency notification system at venues. "That's not [specified] in either the NFPA 101 and 72 codes, but it can be done and it makes sense to do," he says.
From "Codes are Costly, but Failure Costs Even More," by Dan Daley in "The Biz," PLSN, Sept. 2010
