Indiana Reviews Stage Rules

 

“We want assurances every county fair isn’t going to be treated like the Super Bowl,” Rep. Bill Davis said. The state imposed interim emergency rules in May on all events that employ temporary stages – rules that some see as bordering on overkill at small venues.

 

Indiana has few events on the scale of the State Fair or big-name concerts that might use the larger stages that require such tight regulation, Davis said. 

 

State Fire Marshal Jim Greeson’s office enforces the emergency rules and reports to the state’s Fire and Building Safety Commission.  

 

Greeson said the state wouldn’t require temporary stages to comply with all the regulations as long as they met size and weight limits and no more than 12 people are on them at a time. “That would cover most small venues,” he said. Stages set up on the back of haywagons, pickup trucks or similar vehicles are also exempt if they don’t exceed certain limits, he said. 

 

Event organizers also would be exempt if they create a buffer zone keeping people out of an area around their stages that extends 8 feet beyond the height of the rigging to protect fans in case of a collapse.  That exemption would apply only to temporary outdoor stage equipment that does not extend higher than 20 feet above the stage surface.

“We don’t want to overburden. We don’t want to overregulate.  But we all want the event to be done safely,” Greeson said.

 

Randy Brown, GM of Fort Wayne’s Memorial Coliseum, said he heard discussion of temporary stage safety all over the world when he traveled last year as chairman of IAVM.

 

“We’re not at the final step in this process,” Brown said. “We need to have a set of criteria that can be translated across all 50 states.”

 

A group of entertainment industry leaders is studying an event safety guide, commonly called “The Purple Guide,” that’s been in place in the United Kingdom for about 20 years to determine if it could serve as the basis for a U.S. plan.