The entertainment industry is an enormous business, it employs millions world-wide, and it crosses all walks of life. Nightclubs, Theatre, Film, TV, Education, Manufacturing, Sales & Marketing are all a part of the machine. When we start-out in this industry many of us may be star-struck with visions of being an actor, musician, or dancer; and some of us have dreams of being the greatest costume designer, lighting designer, or audio mixer; but eventually, our interests veer off-course and we get caught-up in a different aspect of the business. We haven’t failed at what we are doing, we have refocused our efforts.

I mention this divergence away from pure theatre, as many of the readers have not turned off of the central path of their career goals, yet. When that time comes, you will find yourself in unfamiliar territory, literally. Strange buildings, foreign countries (or at least another city or state), and with new job responsibilities. When that happens, and it will, you need to be keenly aware of your surroundings.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto”

You no longer have the warmth of family and friends, you may be living under a different set of laws and regulations, and you undoubtedly will be working in buildings that are different from your prior experiences. You have to develop a sense of awareness to your surroundings that is much more heightened than you may be accustomed to. Call it ‘Spider Sense’, if you will, but it is necessary for your safety and well-being. Feeling ‘tingly’? What is the underlying concern that brought this on?

One of the first experiences you may have had with this was when you family moved to another town, or maybe when you first went away to college; or it may have been after you graduated and moved to a different city for your first ‘real’ job. The things we must re-familiarize yourself with are basic items like “What part of town should I avoid after dark?”, “Do I dial 911 for the fire and police?”, and “What rules apply in my workplace?”

In this exploration of the world around you, you are bring a ‘fresh set of eyes’ to your risk assessment. This is good. This is really good. Use it.

When I walk into a an unfamiliar theatre it never ceases to amaze me the abundance of Building Code, Fire Code, and OSHA Safety violations that are immediately apparent. Simple and preventable stuff, too: Blocked fire exits, flammable goods everywhere, trip hazards, and usually a large number of electrical safety issues and places where there are significant opportunities for serious, even deadly falls. Why have these items gone unnoticed? Why have they been allowed to continue year after year?

Consequences.

These items affect not just you (albeit your personal safety is a good thing to be concerned about – even the airlines tell you to don your supplemental oxygen mask BEFORE you attempt to help others), they affect everyone around you as well. Basic moral principles tell us that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This means that if you have concerns for your own safety- then you should see to it that the others around you are safe, too.

This last weekend there was a fire in a nightclub (yes, that is a HUGE part of the entertainment industry, and you may well end-up working in a few over the life of your career) that killed 235 people and significantly injured another 150 or so people. The investigation has not yet been concluded, yet the information freely available shows the following:

• The building was packed over the legal capacity.
• The building had only one point of egress for almost 1300 people.
• The path to it was through a labyrinth of intermediate railings and partition walls making a narrow ziz-zag travel path.
• The band illegally set-off pyrotechnics.
• The pyrotechnics ignited a foam-like material that was used for sound deadening.
• The foam material was not intended for interior construction and once ignited generated massive amounts of toxic fumes that deprived people of air and created a dark cloud of smoke that made visibility almost zero.
• A fire extinguisher handed to one of the band members in attempt to suppress the blaze was dysfunctional.
• The fire alarm system either did not exist or was not functional, so the bouncers at the door tried to stop people from exiting thinking they were trying to skip-out on their bills.
• In the confusion of people trying to get to the single available exit door, people unfamiliar with the building mistook the bathroom doors for exit doors, so the bathrooms were filled with bodies of people trapped in there when the air ran-out.
• One of the band members went back into the building trying to recover a musical instrument left-behind and died in the fire.

Sound familiar? Not ten years earlier almost the exact same thing happened in West Warwick, Rhode Island at The Station nightclub. The only key difference was that the loss of life was limited to 100 people, and that was mostly because the venue was smaller. A book about the fire, lawsuits, and aftermath was written by one of the lawyers, John Barylick, and is a fascinating read.

So, the take-away from today’s blog is that we all need to take notice of our surroundings, notify others of the hazards we observe, and know how to effectively egress from a building in the event of an emergency.

Play Safe!