Members fantasticsound Posted July 17, 2006 Members Share Posted July 17, 2006 Originally posted by Norton666 I totally understand that this is not something to take lightly and should not be a trial and error thing. Heres the problem: I am in Nebraska. I literally would have to drive 200 miles to see a flown system installation, let alone finding someone to do it. What CraigV said! I'm going to be blunt because you don't understand. Otherwise you wouldn't have posted the comment above."Waaaugh, waaaughhhh! I have to drive 200 miles to see...." Seriously, either you want to do this right or you want to put people's lives at risk on the bet you'll do an adequate job. Sounds like a couple of idiots who owned a popular club in Rhode Island. Ring any bells?? Thought they could do their own work as well. Who would've thought hanging unapproved foam on the walls could have such far reaching effects on so many lives. Those guys are almost assuredly going to jail, hopefully for a long, long time. Do you even want put yourself in line for similar punishment? .{edit: With apologies to Agedhorse who quoted my mistake. } You already live in Nebraska... but I'm quite sure prison in Nebraska would be worse. If you can't afford to go learn correctly than you certainly can't afford the insurance, legal bills, etc. when your homemade rigging causes injury or death. Originally posted by Norton666 "Professionals" havent always been professionals, they had to start somewhere right? I dont know what any of the abbreviations you guys are throwing out mean (I.A.T.S.E). I appreciate all of the help, but I am not willing to settle for a "just forget about it and hire a professional" attitude. I honestly want to know what steps I need to take to become , not necessarily a professional, but someone who is confident in doing this type of work. Again, as Craig stated, there is no inbetween. Either you are capable of being a professional and are bonded or you're not. We're not talking about hanging speakers in your own home. We're talking about a business that, by law, is required to adhere to building codes for safety, among other things.Rigging requires calculations based on weight, structural design of the building, structural design of the hang hardware, among other things. If you don't know how to calculate the actual load on a hang based on the weight, angle of load, number of hang points and load ratings of materials then you have no business hanging anything more than a picture frame.People really die because of poor rigging jobs. When I arrived at the Central Chicago GC back in 1991, I was shown a 10" thick book JBL created back in the late 1980's or early 1990's of information on rigging everything they sold after being sued because a contractor mis-hung a center cluster and killed a clergyman at the church. JBL had nothing to do with the install, but because they had no specific guidelines written out for contractors they were held liable too. And, of course, they had deep pockets to pay whereas the contractor had little Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted July 17, 2006 Members Share Posted July 17, 2006 Before you go hanging speakers let me say that "flying speakers" are born and not made. Let the factories put them together and certify them ... don't be trying to add hardware in an attempt to fly them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted July 17, 2006 Members Share Posted July 17, 2006 You already live in North Dakota... but I'm quite sure prison in North Dakota would be worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BillESC Posted July 17, 2006 Members Share Posted July 17, 2006 I'll back up the previous post about rigging and the potential for problems. Anyone remember Curtis Mayfield? Curtis was crippled when a storm blew down a lighting truss. The company that did the lighting for the concert purchased Genie Lifts from me 6 years prior to the date of the concert, BUT because of my proximity to the case, I WAS SUED FOR ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS. Nuff said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fantasticsound Posted July 17, 2006 Members Share Posted July 17, 2006 Originally posted by BillESC I'll back up the previous post about rigging and the potential for problems. Anyone remember Curtis Mayfield? Curtis was crippled when a storm blew down a lighting truss. The company that did the lighting for the concert purchased Genie Lifts from me 6 years prior to the date of the concert, BUT because of my proximity to the case, I WAS SUED FOR ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS. Nuff said. I assume you took it out of petty cash. Seriously, how did you make that go away without being wrung through the dryer?? I'm assuming you're not Bill Gates. I remember hearing of a company that was sued for a defective farm machinery built over 100 years ago. When the current owners (another company) bought the farm machinery company decades earlier they unknowingly assumed liability for defects in that company's products. At least it was enough to be sued. I don't remember the outcome of the litigation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fantasticsound Posted July 17, 2006 Members Share Posted July 17, 2006 Originally posted by dboomer Before you go hanging speakers let me say that "flying speakers" are born and not made. Let the factories put them together and certify them ... don't be trying to add hardware in an attempt to fly them. Yes! IIRC, that was the crux of the JBL/Church install. The Contractor rigged the speakers using their handles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BillESC Posted July 17, 2006 Members Share Posted July 17, 2006 It was a "shotgun" law suit and I had plenty of company including the City of New York, Coca Cola, Mayor A Beam, Parks Department, etc. I represented my self and have bankers boxes of paper to prove it. In the end Genie's insurance company settled and I was only out time and mental stress. The point is however, the liability of rigging reaches far and wide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted July 18, 2006 Members Share Posted July 18, 2006 I was just sued for a job we completed over 14 years ago. We successfully proved that the cause was 100% due to negligence of the other parties, we were absolutely 100% in the right and we had the original engineering documentation and original drawing set to prove it. We also had all the old job files and weekly construction meeting notes with the text of the discussions of all safety issues that we solved in the construction management group. We were completely absolved of all liability. Insurance company provided the defense council and it was all over quite quickly for us (but not for the other parties). Good reason to have insurance... even though we were in the right it still cost the insurance company $$$ to defend us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fantasticsound Posted July 18, 2006 Members Share Posted July 18, 2006 Wow! Glad to hear both of you were absolved of responsibility. God knows being held responsible is often unrelated to whether you actually are responsible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members boseengineer Posted July 18, 2006 Members Share Posted July 18, 2006 Just to keep tooting the horn: Boston has a big outdoor festival called "earth day" around the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade. 100k+ people at least. A couple of years ago they had attached a large banner to the stage-left cluster. A healthy ocean breeze cought the banner like sail and the whole cluster came crushing down into the crowd. Incredibly and luckily no one got killed and relatively few people got injured. The top of the cluster landed 6 feet in front of my son ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fantasticsound Posted July 18, 2006 Members Share Posted July 18, 2006 Yep... Third world countries such as Turkey aren't the only places people do stupid things, pro or otherwise, where rigging is concerned. Your post illustrates another very important point; Just because you can rig a light truss or sound system doesn't mean you know everything there is to know about rigging. Aerodynamics of hung material makes a huge difference on the strength and necessary tiedown points, especially on outdoor gigs where strong winds are possible. Even structural engineers and architects take into account the reaction of their permanent structures to the effects of the environment. An interesting feature of modern high rise buildings is the active dampening systems employed to limit the sway of tall buildings by countering the effects of wind with a huge, movable slab that reacts to sensors. And I'll bet some of you had no idea steel and concrete tall buildings such as the Sears Tower sway as much as 20 feet at the top. Glad your son was ok, but I can't imagine he's in too much of a hurry to see another concert from that close to stage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ear Abuser Posted July 18, 2006 Members Share Posted July 18, 2006 And let's not forget this mess:http://arthurcoddington.dotphoto.com/GuestViewImage.asp?AID=997146&IID=30449380&INUM=81&ICT=90&IPP=16 And I'm sure there were plaenty of "pros"involved Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted July 18, 2006 Members Share Posted July 18, 2006 Originally posted by fantasticsound An interesting feature of modern high rise buildings is the active dampening systems employed to limit the sway of tall buildings by countering the effects of wind with a huge, movable slab that reacts to sensors. And I'll bet some of you had no idea steel and concrete tall buildings such as the Sears Tower sway as much as 20 feet at the top. That's some really cool {censored}! I studied basic active dampening systems theory for seismic energy dissipation (or re-direction) in my last year at school, some civil engineering elective class I think, and it's nothing but basic control system theory to an unknown input... involving huge actuators and feedback sensors. Very cool stuff. There are also passive dampening systems that allow for controlled motion but no feedback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted July 18, 2006 CMS Author Share Posted July 18, 2006 Originally posted by agedhorse Good reason to have insurance... even though we were in the right it still cost the insurance company $$$ to defend us. Even better reason to document everything and most importantly *save* the docs. I recall a conversation I had with the owner of a marina who was having trouble with embankments slipping into the water and fouling the marina waterway. I asked him about the project delays, and he told me the problem was environmentalists objections. But he wasn't concerned, because he had a few engineers on retainer and they had nobody. In his own words, "If you go to court with documentation, especially authored by an expert, you will always win if your opposition has none. Even if your documentation is utter bull{censored}....". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members boseengineer Posted July 19, 2006 Members Share Posted July 19, 2006 The tallest building in the world (Taipei 101) has a steel sphere suspended in the 92nd floor to balance it and act as a damping mass. The sphere weighs 650 metric tons !!! Here is a picturehttp://farkleberries.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_farkleberries_archive.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ctardi Posted July 19, 2006 Members Share Posted July 19, 2006 Originally posted by Ear Abuser And let's not forget this mess: http://arthurcoddington.dotphoto.com/GuestViewImage.asp?AID=997146&IID=30449380&INUM=81&ICT=90&IPP=16And I'm sure there were plaenty of "pros"involved Can't view those, can you explain what they are? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ear Abuser Posted July 19, 2006 Members Share Posted July 19, 2006 Hmmm the link worked earlier- It s the grid collapse in atlantic city prior to a Justin Timberlake show (I think). The interesting part is that there was a permanently installed grid in the hall presumably engineered properly, and a bunch of pro riggers, but the thing still collapsed. But it was in Jersey so maybe Tony Soprano's construction company cut a few corners if you know what I mean...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted July 19, 2006 Members Share Posted July 19, 2006 I believe that part of the problem had to do with additional reaction loads between multiple points. Unfortunately not all points are a downward load only, so derating due to non-z axis vector reactions is a must. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fantasticsound Posted July 19, 2006 Members Share Posted July 19, 2006 The Justin Timberlake incident occured on August 8th, 2003 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.Here's a fairly hi-res picture of some of the damage:The building superstructure (grid) collapsed under the load of light and sound truss. Had it happened 10 minutes later injuries and/or loss of life would probably have been great as the crew was coming off break to roll the stage beneath the light/sound trusses. 30 people in the viscinity escaped to safety, but a local crewmember posted here that upwards of 80 crew would've been under that truss 10 minutes later.Here's an online industry mag article with pics that link to larger versions. It's hideous.I've never heard any follow-up. Does anyone know if investigation findings were ever released? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fantasticsound Posted July 19, 2006 Members Share Posted July 19, 2006 Originally posted by agedhorse That's some really cool {censored}! I studied basic active dampening systems theory for seismic energy dissipation (or re-direction) in my last year at school, some civil engineering elective class I think, and it's nothing but basic control system theory to an unknown input... involving huge actuators and feedback sensors. Very cool stuff. There are also passive dampening systems that allow for controlled motion but no feedback. Interesting. My studies in this area were of Beyond 2000 and other Discovery Channel tv programs. One of them used time lapse photography to exaggerate the movement of the giant slab on the roof of the building they were discussing.I love documentary shows that explain how our world is built and how it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.