Following up on last month’s column on severe weather preparedness, two operations staff at Fox Theatre, Atlanta, share what they do and what they’ve learned to prevent injury and protect guests.
Amy Smith, director of Production, Fox Theatre, Atlanta:
My focus is on the fact that we have an uncovered loading dock. We worry about the metal docks and wind. Wind is a danger because of the alley way that we load-in through. We make sure people are not careless about leaving equipment and materials on the dock. We keep a close eye on the loading and unloading process from a safety perspective.
Proper attire for labor goes hand in hand with weather. The high winds blow things over and our union does not require steel toe shoes. We have workers with soft shoes on a dock that is metal and an area that is windy. Canada is further ahead with hard rules on hard hats, proper shoes and personal protection equipment. It is coming to the U.S., but slowly.
With front of house, we work with the shows to ask for permission to open the doors into the lobby and theatre as early as possible. We have put this into place before, and shows are generally understanding because of the conditions.
And securing anything on the building exterior is a priority in these situations.
Fortunately, we have had a good deal of experience in a wide variety of situations. One of the benefits of an experienced staff is comfort and familiarity with radio protocols, who talks when. This allows us to communicate in a clear and concise manner to react to and solve situations as they occur.
Jon Cooper, Guest Experience manager, Fox Theatre:
Many of our frontline employees don’t live in the city. The Atlanta population is spread out all over a metropolitan region, and it is truly a commuter city. I believe that over 70 percent of our Front of House paid staff and perhaps 85 percent of our ushers (volunteers) live outside the city proper. This makes staffing a real challenge when faced with severe weather. If the show is going on and conditions are poor, we see massive cancellations from staff and volunteers. I think many venue managers are so focused on the ways in which inclement weather affect the guest experience, they may overlook significant challenges related to staffing and the contingencies required to meet the show’s needs.
When we have a show going on during severe weather conditions, there appears to be a general resentment from the attendees that the performance/event was not canceled. This may be specific to our area, but we sometimes run into guests that are present but resent the fact they were ‘forced’ to attend.
A piece of advice for all facility types is to prepare for a full evacuation by recording how long it takes for the venue to empty under normal conditions at various levels of attendance. Because of the challenges in communicating a clear evacuation message to both staff and guests, additional time to conduct a full evacuation needs to be added to the normal amount of time it takes to empty the venue. Venue operators need to work backwards to calculate how much time is needed to make the decision to evacuate the venue, communicate with all of the key decision makers, get staff in place and ready for the evacuation, and communicate a clear execution message to all of the guests.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Without proper planning and training, you are counting on luck to determine your outcome.
Russ Simons is...
managing partner, Venue Solutions Group, and has been in this industry for more than three decades, working in arenas, stadiums, design, construction, safety and security. Send questions about any aspect of venue operation to askruss@venuestoday.com or mail questions to Venues Today, P.O. Box 2540, Huntington Beach, CA 92647.