Venue Safety

[Peter]

Your doing an amateur show and you experience the following.

The venue owner hasnt spent any money for years maintaining his venue. The venue operator wont spend money on a venue he doesnt own. The production company who you are working for wont deal with the poor condition of the venue back stage.

Finally the venue agrees to have the venue inspected by that all knowing guy, "The suitably qualified person". It is alledged that all is well, but the 24 acroprops holding up the stage and the 25kg load limit on each fly bar tell you otherwise. The chained and padlocked fire exits, the exposed 240V wiring and gaffered over sprinkler heads add to your concern.

Nothing bad has ever happened here in the last 50 years you are told. The young cast of 50+ have been rehearsing and selling tickets for the past 6 months and are eagerly awaiting opening night in two weeks.

By now we should all know what our obligations are when we find an unsafe workplace but in reality what would you do?

Do you do your job, say nothing and hope that it doesnt all go wrong during your gig?
Do you refuse to put yourself into an unsafe workplace and walk away?
Do you report the venue to Worksafe with the aim of protecting the cast & crew and take a chance that Worksafe may close the venue forcing your show to cancel upsetting 100+ people?

Any similarity to any actual venue is purely coincidental as no venue would ever let this happen surely.

[djrappa]

Well I wouldn't be so sure about no vunue's letting this happen! Maybe all of those are a stretch but I could name many a venue who fill at least one of those categories...

These days I'd most likely make an anonymous tip off to workcover, and if they needed me to come forward then I'd probably consider doing that too.
I guess you could just say I'm over dealing with unsafe conditions.
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Cheers
Clint Dulieu
vrtp

[applez]

I have been involved in several venues where things have been quite right. However I have worked in one particular venue (on a number of occassions, but only on the last time did I realise how dangerous it was) and felt it was so dangerous that I did report them to Workcover.

Of course, it didnt help that the venue was not actually run by professional theatre workers, or anybody with some modicum of knowledge of theatre standards...that was the straw so to speak, because theatre professionals would never have allowed it to get as bad...

I hope at any rate.

[firelight]

It all boils down to the fact that you have a Duty of Care to do something. The residents who lived near and around the concentration camps in Germany used the 'I did not know' defence. I know the show must go on but we are not curing cancer here, nothing is worth getting hurt.

I worked with a pyrotechnician once who got bullied in to firing his pyros in a position where he could not see the stage. He was one of the most meticulous and safe people I have ever worked with. Ten minutes later he was watching the last of 8 ambulances taking children with flash burns to the eyes to hospital.

If you see a wrong and don't attempt to right it, you are as bad as your mythical venue operator is.

[489]

As an industry, we all have a duty of care to report such violations. Its not good enough to point the finger after the event, and say, see, I told you so. The consequences can be very severe, and in some cases, are deadly. So how do we do it? First, look at what violations have been made. ie, violations of the OH&S Act, the Fire Brigades Act etc. and send the venue a letter. At least you are starting a paper trail, covering yourself. If this doesn't succeed, or you suspect that you will have other issues with the management, then, an anonymus tip off to workcover may be in order.

Dodgy equipment and venues should not be tolerated. Nothing may go wrong in your gig, but it may happen the next day with a different operator. I would then expect questions from the authorities asking why I didn't do anything about it when I was in the venue the day earlier.

On another note, I am still quite amused at the relaxed attitude that many in this industry still seem to have with regards to OH&S. In this day and age, I don't think the 'she'll be right, mate' attitude is good enough. Nor is the fact that many production companies don't seem to be too concerned with crew drinking alcohol etc during a function whilst operating at FOH. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when Workcover come around investigating 'that accident' that occured whilst the same crew are bumping out. And then we move into the public liabity insurance (PLI) debacle. I had a conversation with a Lighting guy who was a sole trader about two years ago who didn't have PLI, because he didn't think he'd ever need it. Isn't that a great attitude to have?!? Mistakes happen. We should all seriously look at our obligations to each other, and to the public with regards to OH&S. It really is a difference between life and death.

[djrappa]

You make some good points however I think we could all do without the anonymous user thing starting here as well...

I have seen many a good forum be ruined by people who sign up for a new name just to post something without revealing their identity...
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Cheers
Clint Dulieu
vrtp

[489]

I'm not holding anything back from anyone, or being anonymous. I have a forum ID, same as everyone else. Yours is djrappa and that doesn't say what your name is.. My user ID happens to be a number.

Regards,

John Pappas

[djrappa]

Aha now see the signature reveals all

...I should have known...good answer to the original post BTW!
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Cheers
Clint Dulieu
vrtp

[applez]

Yes, well returning to the actual topic...

I have worked a number of times where directors and actors have asked me to do something in which is slightly unsafe. At telling them that I will not take responsibility for an accident, and will not do what I was asked, am told "But other theatre companies do it!"

I think there is an incredible amount of ignorance on the artistic direction side (not blaming anyone in particular, but most of the people I have worked with, it is the actors/directors who have been the most unsafe to work around), where some of them, not having much technical experience, do not understand completely what safety is.

Just because someone else does it, doesn't make it safer, and doesn't make it any less of my responsibility and does not lessen my liability if something goes wrong.

I really hate it when you have to fight over artistic vision vs. safety. When will people realise that if you're dead, hurt or sued, you won't be able to have a show?

Na

[adam]

I was helping a mate of mine out with a bit of a rig for his engagement party. We were rigging in a regular venue that has weird bars (rectangle). I was rigging a bar of cans and must have twisted a bit weird (didn't even notice that day). I was useless for the next 2 weeks and at the osteopath every second day.

So I told the venue I would NEVER rig anything on anything other than 2" round again. Now they've installed a few proper lighting bars and it's all good (the new bars are in much better locations also).

If anyone asks me to do somthing i'm not comfortable doing. I tell them it's a bad idea and if they really want to do it they can but I won't.

If a venue was unsafe I would try and make the right people (venue) aware of it. If the venue people wanted to ignore safety, I don't think I would want to work there.
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Adam Boon
webmaster@paservices.com

[Peter]

Thanks for the candid responses so far.
It would appear that we have all experienced unsafe venues, although with 150+ viewings of this topic and only 9 responses, most of us arent concerned enough to post a reply.

[Don Allen]

A lot of the venue safety problems comes down to ignorance of the relevant regulations, but you cannot blame only the venue as the state and federal governments have been the main cause of the ignorance.
We used to have inspectors visiting work areas and advising venues of the safety issues in way of infringement notices etc, then along came affordable safety and accountants started running departments responsable for safety watchdog activities and the inspections stopped as they reduced staffing.

So it is up to us to be aware of the regulations and inform the venues. If they do nothing about it then contact worksafe.

It is hard to keep track of the regulations and some are buried deep inside filing cabinets down in basements with no light etc.
It took me years to find the WA regulations covering theatres and although I have posted the following notic on the ITA web site in WA, not many amateur theatre groups have put safety chains on their lights.

"I have come across the WA Theatre Lighting regulations at The State Law Publisher at http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/index.html. The book costs $8.20 and covers theatre lighting, exit lighting, auditorium lighting, stage rigging etc.

This should be read in conjunction with AS/NZS 3000:2000 Wiring Rules to ensure you meet your legal obligations. In WA testing and tagging come under providing a safe working environment under Worksafe regulations. Not as stringently enforced as over east.

I now know that safety chains are compulsory on all lights that are hung in areas where the public have access, (which is really everywhere) each dimmer rack has to have its own switch so three phase splitters or twofers are legal providing they are fed from a circuit breaker (AS/NZS 3000:2000 Wiring Rules clause 1.8.3.5 "Limitation of Maximum Demand" ) and have a seperate switch for each dimmer. Expensive option but legal.

No specific mention of the profile or shape of spot bars, but the lights have to be hung in a safe and secure manner which suggests that square bar is not suitable as the hook clamp screw could work its way up the side of the tube as you tighten it up.

It would pay for techs and committees to get a copy of this book as it would affect their liability."

As you say Peter, 150 looks says we are not doing enough about it so I hope the above helps.
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Lighting Designer and manufacturer of Theatre Electronics

[applez]

This actually makes me think of public liability.

I have no PL for technical roles, but am covered as an actor (I have a small co-op company). Where do you find PL for techies? How many of you have it? My lighting teacher stopped his cover because he couldn't afford it. I can barely afford my crappy actor's PL, but I do more work as a tech than as an actor. Does anybody have some advice?

[dandaman]

What we also have to remember here is that there are probably more non-professional theatre rigs than professional theatre rigs. Along with this there is night clubs, live events and many other categories of lighting and sound rigs.

In amateur theatre with an amateur venue it is very easy to encounter a large amount of ignorance or "I don't know" about OH&S.

I think if you are the LD at a venue and you are responsible for rigging the lights, you to are responsible for anyone who is hurt by those lights.

With venue safety though, it is defiantly the venue owner's responsibility to ensure anything that is house owned is safe and if it isn't then an LD can simple say no. The amount of fines and crap a venue owner can cop if you complain to them that you were being asked to work in an unsafe environment, along with OH&S, dept of fair trading, work cover etc there is a scary enough risk.
Many theatre's professionally nowadays are a lot more in tune with this as the scary "sue everyone" action is known. If you slip over on a wet floor you can sue someone, let alone if your wife is crushed because a 1mW light fell off the FOH bar because the LD wasn’t supplied with safety chains.

Enough said anyone who witnesses unsafe acts is at fault for them. As someone else already posted though, the bet (unfortunately) way to solve it is to write a letter. As lame as it may sound its the smartest legal thing to do in that situation.
As far as an amateur venue goes though, for example a public school or local church may not have the money to fix up their hall's lighting so its up to you to remove the gaffa tape from the fire sprinklers, use bolt-cutters on the fire exit, electric tape up all the exposed wiring (turn off the fuse first otherwise u might feel a slight tingle in your hand...) and for god sake buy a proper stage.

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Danny P.

[msaario]

Hi there


I'm a lighting director of a amateur theatre company.

Where can i get my hands on a copy of the OH&S regulations for Victoria covering Theatres? or a copy of this little 'red' book for victoria?

Thanks
Matt