Stage falls on Sugarland crowd at Indiana State Fair

Every time you construct and deconstruct something, it becomes less structurally sound.

I am amazed there is not an inspector of some type over top of these things. If I wrote for the local paper, I would start snooping around old permits from last year and see whose name is on them.

We cannot even do a fucking high school graduation without the fire marshall signing off on it.

 

By the way, same day, same state: an outdoor Christian music fest in South Bend pulls the plug once a storm started rolling in. This is a writeup from Third Day, which had played at the Indiana State Fair three days before the stage fell (that was the show my wife and I saw):

http://www.thirdday.com/shows/south-bend-08-13-11#showdesc

To me, the issue is less about the stage than it is making sure you have a plan to get people out in case of weather or emergency. So far, it looks as if the Indiana State Fair had no plan.

 

But in the case of the State Fair, there ARE no permits. Everyone already knows who built the stage (it's a private company, Mid America Stage, out of Greenfield, Ind., that provides a lot of stages for outdoor events). It wasn't built to any specs, because there were no specs under which it had to be built.

Now, where it might get interesting is if, in places where permits and inspections are required for outdoor stages, if this same company had any history of violations.

 

Its windy sometimes in Indiana. Just like its windy in a lot of places.

If there's a problem, its with the people responsible on-site. The Notre Dame case was a coach being negligent, simple as that. The other was a circumstance that should have been handled better by the State Fair.

And its not the first time wind has caused injuries at a major event in Indy. One incident that I'm surprised has been forgotten was when the remnants of Hurricane Ike moved directly over IMS during the first MotoGP event in 2008. The eye of the hurricane moved over the speedway during the event, which was awe-inspiring, but it also caused this to happen.



http://tribstar.com/sports/x1155771678/Valentino-Rossi-wins-Hurricane-Ike-marred-inaugural-MotoGP-race-at-Indianapolis

But as unfortunate as it was, it was also clearly an act of God. There was no negligence that I recall.

As for Indiana's lack of regulatory oversight, it is shocking, shocking!



But as much as I think the lack of regulatory oversight in Indiana is stupid, I don't even think it can be blamed for this. I really don't think anything can be extrapolated from this other than that it was an unfortunate tragedy and an act of God from a responsibility standpoint.

 

Bubbler, my beef is less with the stage construction, and more with the Indiana State Fair having no idea what to do in case of weather or emergency. It's not clear to me who got to make the final call on postponing or canceling the show -- the band, the fair, the promoter, or whomever. Everyone spent so much time dithering -- rather than getting people out of there, as just about every other outdoor event in the state that night did -- that it put people in harm's way.

And regulations aren't just there to be a bother -- they can protect the regulated as well. At this point, who is going to go to the State Fair for a concert, knowing that the venue can't guarantee some level of safety? For that matter, what BAND is going to want to play there anymore? The Indiana State Fair is going to suffer a huge economic impact, not just this year but in following years, because no one had even planned for what to do in case of weather or emergency. And I don't mean just the economic impact of defending a zillion lawsuits.

 

I'm not disagreeing with any of that.

 

Not sure how this is a failure of regulation when the state was putting it on. This wasn't a privately-run function. It was the state fair, which is on state-owned property.

And it comes at a time when the fairgrounds was just about to engage in a significant renovation of the Pepsi Coliseum across the street. You're right about the significant amount of money lost. This was an Act of God, but due diligence should have been done to evacuate, not talk about evacuation. I haven't learned much in three and a half decades of living in Indiana, but one thing I have learned is you don't screw around with severe weather. You get people out of harm's way ... when the storm is 20 minutes away, start evacuating ... don't tell them the show is about to start and you'll get as much in as you can (when the band manager wouldn't let the band itself go on stage anyway).

 

The fairgrounds may be state-owned but that doesn't necessarily mean the fair is state-run.

Down here Fair Park is owned by the city of Dallas but the State Fair of Texas is a private company that leases the park from the city in order to put on the fair.

 

Armchair -- in Indiana, the state fair is a state agency. Even though it's in the Indianapolis city limits, and Indianapolis would have required inspections, because the fair is on state-owned land, state rules apply.

Out of the three big shows this week -- Janet Jackson, Lady Antebellum and Maroon 5/Train -- only the latter is going on, as a victims' benefit show at Conseco Fieldhouse. Sugarland is planning to come back to town -- not the fair -- for a memorial.

Meanwhile, the fair has done an about-face and will NOT report daily attendance for the rest of its run this week. I can only imagine that crowds have thinned considerably. Losing those three concerts alone probably skims 30,000-40,000 off the top.

 

Great piece knocking down the big lie that the storm was a "fluke." Also a pistol-whipping to anyone who still views meteorology as some sort of mystery mumbo-jumbo.

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/indianapolis-tragedy-not-a-fluke_2011-08-15

 

Gov. Daniels called it a "fluke" a day or two after it happened. Good thing he's not running for president, he would have been belittled for that. That was not a fluke at all.

 

http://www.spinner.com/2011/08/18/smith-westerns-pukkelpop-stage-collapse/
Stage collapse in Belgium. 4 dead.
A buddy of mine was there:
"That was the tent we were going to play in at 9pm!!! Massive storm passed over! Chaos everywhere. Eerily still now for a festival...only the sound of sirens the whole time. Nobody can leave festival site"