With problems like stratospheric ticket prices, the failure of new acts to fill stadiums, greedy artists, novice promoters, rising production costs and scalping — doesn’t the live event industry have enough to worry about? Apparently not. Let’s add audience fatalities, collapsing structures, massive insurance payouts and growing legal costs to the mix. This seminar, titled “The 10 Commandments of Live Event Safety,” fielded a stellar panel of experts and attracted a sold-out crowd. The audience of tour managers, insurance guys, agents, managers, audio and lighting techs were not exactly your risk-adverse demographic. Their DNA contains the “show must go on” coding. For an industry that is barely 50 years old, and only recently started calling itself an industry, falling roofs and stages may be a bigger threat than falling box office returns.
The Problem
Moderator John Brown of Brown United set a grim tone. “In 2011, the concert industry produced 11,000 concerts, five accidents and 12 deaths. This is an unacceptable statistic.” Co-moderator Mary Lou Figley of StageCo Staging Group added, “We have a responsibility to all the lives lost — this is not an exclusive club.” Fatal accidents. while rare are not new to the concert business. The deaths associated with the Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway and The Who in Cincinnati were tragic failures of crowd control. The Aug. 13, 2011 accident at the Indiana State Fair just before Sugarland took the stage combined high winds with structural and infrastructural failure. As long as the outdoor multiple act venue (i.e., Coachella and Bonnaroo) is part of the promoter/artist business plan, the risks may well increase. Both festivals have an impeccable safety record but, as an audience member pointed out, “more bad stuff can happen outdoors.”
The Solution
Brown introduced the recently-formed Event Safety Alliance (www.eventsafetyalliance.org) and distributed a three-page document outlining their proposed requirements for outdoor event structures. The document is in two parts. The first covers the technical requirements and supporting documents already contained in an ANSI standard for stage and roof construction. The second takes a first step toward what attorney Steve Adelman calls an “all-hazard approach,” adding, “It’s only three pages, but it meets the law’s standard of what is reasonable.” Ron Digby (Linkin Park) and festival promoter Hadden Hippsley (Phish) both said that their acts were already in compliance with the main points in the new standard and that it has not cost them any more to follow the new guidelines. James Chippendale went so far as to predict lower insurance rates for outdoor events if the document were to be widely adopted and adhered to. So far so good — promoters and managers need to read the rules and abide them; a responsible industry is busily regulating itself in an ideal world.
A Few Caveats
Cheap Trick manager Dave Frey reminded the panel that on the festival and State Fair circuit artists have almost no control of the roofs and stages supplied by the promoter or municipality.
Frey drew laughter from the crowd comparing the artists’ rider to the house rider. “No one pays any attention to the contract — all those years of brown M&Ms have made the riders a joke.” Following a near death experience in at the Ottawa Bluesfest on July 18, 2011, when a roof collapsed during Cheap Trick’s set, Frey took a closer look at the structures provided by the venues for the rest of the tour. “For safety reasons, we pulled out of a gig using a similar roof structure. We sacrificed the fee and paid the non-appearance costs. Fifteen seconds later, the promoter booked a replacement act. Promoters follow the money — they always will.” He added, “The insurance companies have all the power — they can screw you around forever. If, as a panel, we miss this opportunity to act, then insurance rates will go up.” Everyone agreed that the document on safety standards would be a great thing if it were enforceable. The reality is that some public events, not limited to concerts, will be considerably safer than others. The likelihood is that a U2 show in Dodger Stadium with an infrastructure of production royalty, top-notch vendors and a management team deeply aware of the value of their act and its responsibility to a huge crowd will be safer than a State Fair in Tornado Alley with a stage supplied by the lowest bidder. This gap can be narrowed either from within (self-policing) or by legislation. Self-policing is the current de facto standard for most concerts and has a decent record of safety, although not quite the zero accident rate that Brown and his panel are striving for. The unspoken fear is that, if the concert industry does not impose its own internal safety codes, then big Government might jump in and try their hand at it. Anyone who has ever tried to get a UL listing or face an OSHA committee will have a fuller picture of what outside legislation might feel like.
What the Brits Do
Sporting a copy of the “Purple Guide,” U.K. safety consultant Tim Roberts explained that, after the deaths of two audience members at Castle Donington (Monsters of Rock) the U.K. got its act together and produced a guidebook for event safety that in 1999 became known as the “Pop Code.” Its contents, while not legally enforceable, provide the basis for event planning in the U.K. and Europe. With characteristic English understatement, Roberts pointed out that the “legal setup in the U.K. is a bit different.” U.K. attorneys may not take cases on contingency, and the losing party in a lawsuit routinely has to pay all the legal costs of the winning party, greatly reducing the number of nuisance lawsuits. Roberts sees his role as “translating between rock ‘n’ roll-speak and health-and-safety-speak.” The “Pop Code” takes a holistic view of event planning. Roberts likens it to an iceberg — “99 percent of the planning process is pre facto — we establish the critical paths of responsibility early in the planning stage.” He added, “All deaths are a failure of management, not a failure of metal.” (Ever the contrarian, Frey produced from his pocket a sheared size eight truss bolt and declared, “This is a failure of metal.”) Roberts’ view that all accidents are preventable or avoidable goes to the core of the safety debate. The U.K. production community learned a lot from staging the events around the Millennium. These were a triumph of planning and went off without major incident. But can this level of planning and meticulous pre-production be applied to events with lower profile and lower budgets? Not according to Frey, who laid out the typical scenario of a local municipality providing a roof and stage for an act. “They get three bids for the staging and take the cheapest one — the bands go along with it because they will do anything for money. The promoter gets show cancellation insurance and it’s a win/win for them and the band.” Participation from the audience picked up, and Kevin Lyman, organizer of the Coachella Festival, pointed out, “The whole festival environment is dangerous no matter what precautions you take. I have seen 3-foot-long long tent stakes torn from the ground and land in trees 60 feet tall. If I thought the conditions were too dangerous, I would not hesitate to stop a show. If it looks dangerous, we need to lower roofs sooner, not later.” Another audience member suggested an “approved vendor list” for staging companies. Roberts quipped, “How about an approved promoters list?”
The Plug, and Who Pulls It
Canceling a show, or “pulling the plug,” is the concert equivalent of the triple-dog-dare in the playground. Often used as a threat to coerce payment from promoters, the threat of cancellation, especially with the audience in place, is the trump card, and is never played lightly. Pulling the plug is a no-win proposition with a set of expensive downsides, including the refund of thousands of tickets and the real risk of crowd insurgence. For good reason, it’s a last resort that has to hold up to an intense post-mortem from the many aggrieved parties. With so many stakeholders, who has the ultimate power to determine that conditions, typically of weather, warrant the cancellation of an event? This decision will stop the revenue stream without stopping the expense stream. This is the moment in the seminar when all insurance agents in the audience sit up and pay close attention. They have now become the income stream. As showtime approaches, the storm clouds building on the horizon are nothing compared to the storm brewing in the production trailer. Will the band, the promoter, the engineers, local police and fire marshals sit down like grown- ups to make good decisions, or will panic set in?
Brown and his newly-formed Event Safety Alliance want to make a dress rehearsal for this scenario as commonplace as a sound check. This is where Roberts’ “decision tree” really sprouts some branches to protect all stakeholders, from the lead guitar player to the hot dog vendors. In a place where everyone has an opinion but few have a vote, a meeting to decide who decides would seem like common sense. Roger Sandau, an insurance agent, explained. “It’s simple. The policy holder of the cancellation insurance must decide, and it is helpful if he can do it on a rational basis. For large events, it is common for the insurers to be represented and consulted.” He also pointed out that as weather becomes more predictable, the overall risks are mitigated.
The Cure: Worse than the Disease?
For the outdoor event industry, if ever there was a “can’t we all just get along” moment, this is it. Outdoor shows are back, and the spirit of Woodstock lives on in counterpoint to the iPod. Many see the multi-band, multi-day festival as a permanent feature of the new music landscape. It could save an industry still reeling from more than a few body blows. Now its two great threats are the fear of accidents and its evil twin, the risk of overbearing and expensive legislation. Let the final words be with Steve Adelman. “Attorneys can do pretty well in the risk-assessment business, but the real money is in litigation — that’s where you get a better car and an even more expensive school for your kids.”
