Maintenance and Safe Use of Equipment in Live Events Production

Taking all reasonable steps to ensure your own safety - as well as the safety of anyone else who is likely to be affected by what you do - is a legal requirement. Your efforts should be to:

•  Reduce or remove the hazard.

•  Reduce or eliminate the risk.

A hazard is anything that may cause harm. Risk is the likelihood of harm being caused.

Most live productions present a variety of potential hazards and risks. Probably the easiest way to identify these (and get some perspective on your priorities) is to carry out a Risk Assessment. If you don't know how to go about this, there is a straightforward explanation on the Health and Safety Executive website. You also can find a document template there if you need one.

As far as touring productions are concerned, the main everyday considerations are for:

Electrical Safety

Assuming the electricity supply is safe, the easiest way to improve safety is to use 30mA Residual Current Detectors (RCDs) at every mains outlet. These are available for less than $10 at any DIY store (as well as from many high-street retailers).

Also, all portable electrical equipment should be regularly inspected and checked for electrical safety. Where that equipment is used in a workplace or public area, maintaining it in a safe condition is a legal requirement. A live event is both a workplace and a public area.

The most common method of checking equipment is safe is the Portable Appliance Test (also known - employing a redundant recursive - as the PAT Test). One part of the test - which requires a calibrated tester and someone who knows how to use it - checks two things: that the equipment casing is electrically isolated from mains circuits, and (in the case of earthed equipment) that the earth connection is sound. The other part of the test is a visual inspection. A calibrated tester may reveal invisible faults, but there should be NO visible faults. Far more faults are found by inspection than by testing, so visual inspection is important, and doesn't require specialist equipment. If you can see something wrong with it DO NOT USE IT.

You should always have your eye open for obviously unsafe equipment in your own area of work (even if it isn't yours). Common easily visible faults are:

•  Damaged casing. If screws are missing so that covers are not secure, or the lid is bent inwards (potentially putting it in contact with conductors), or guards or grilles are not in place, don't use it, and don't allow anyone else to use it.

•  Damaged wires or plugs. If the inner insulation (or - worse - a bare wire) is visible, don't use it. Any other signs of damage to cables or plugs also mean you should put them out of use: a cable that has been crushed or cut or badly twisted or stretched is unsafe. If the plug casing is cracked or damaged, REPLACE IT before using the equipment. DO NOT use insulating tape (or Gaffer, Sellotape or parcel tape) to hold it together, even "in an emergency". In fact, do not use any kind of tape, or any other "repair".

Other points that are relatively easy to check are:

•  Fuses and fuse ratings. If the plug has a fuse rating (usually embossed somewhere on it), the fuse should correspond with it. The same applies if there is fuse-point on the appliance (20mm fuse-holders are common in audio equipment). DO NOT REPLACE FUSES WITH OTHER CONDUCTORS like silver paper, kitchen foil, nails, screws, or wire. Do not use equipment in which fuses have been bypassed or replaced with fuses of a different rating.

•  Connections and cable clamps. Cables in plugs or at entry or exit points in equipment casing should be securely clamped over the outer insulation. Don't put lives at risk for the sake of a couple of minutes with a screwdriver. All cable conductors should be secure: screws can (and often do) work loose in plugs, and these should be checked fairly often. EARTH WIRES SHOULD NEVER BE DISCONNECTED even if it does make the hum go away. If you have earth loop problems, disconnect signal grounds, not the mains earth.

While Portable Appliance Tests and certificates are not a legal requirement, they are evidence - often the only satisfactory evidence - that equipment has been adequately maintained. Look after your equipment, and get it tested regularly. Electricity can kill.

Another good reason to get your equipment tested - if protecting yourself and other people from electrocution and/or legal action is not enough - is that test certificates are required by most public bodies (schools, colleges, hospitals, local authorities) for all equipment brought onto their premises. An increasing number of privately-owned venues apply the same standard, and this trend is set to continue. In many venues, no certificate means you don't get to plug it in, however safe you think it is.

Our own equipment is routinely inspected and tested, and certificate copies are available on request. However, we do not provide or bring certificates with us unless we are asked (although all our equipment is pass labelled). If the venue requires certificate copies we need to know before we set out.

Also (obviously?), our own certificates do not cover any third-party equipment unless we have tested it. Where certificates are required, they will also be required for the band's electrical equipment (amplifiers, keyboards, extension leads). If you need to plug it in to make it work, you need a certificate for it. If the show must go on, get it tested.

At outdoor events, any cable connectors that may be exposed to rain, dew, or other sources of moisture should be at least splash-proof (IP44), and preferably even more watertight (the second digit in the IP rating should be 5 or higher). Don't use ordinary 13A plugs and sockets in the rain in the middle of an open field.

Positioning and Connecting Equipment

After electricity the most obvious dangers come from cables or other objects - notably the legs of stands - creating a trip hazard, or from equipment that is insecurely stacked or suspended.

Trip hazards are often a common-sense matter. However, if it hasn't already occurred to you:

•  Don't run cables on the floor across thoroughfares. If there is absolutely no alternative to running a cable across a thoroughfare then:

1. Cover it, preferably with a purpose-made cable strip, and/or

2. Make it visible with hazard tape, or

3. Bury it if it is on grass (but speak to the owner or person in charge before you dig up their croquet lawn).

NEVER RUN ANYTHING ON THE FLOOR ACROSS A FIRE EXIT. Don't obstruct (or place any obstruction or trip hazard close to) a fire exit.

•  Don't allow the legs of speaker stands to project into thoroughfares. If you really can't avoid it, put waist-high barriers around them, or - at the very least - use hazard tape to make them clearly visible. You can also use hazard tape to mark the floor around them.

•  Secure all loose cables (and remember that everyone is at risk from them, even the performers, and even you). Use cable ties overhead, or gaffer tape on the floor. In outdoor events, use matting to cover cables in any thoroughfares, or lift a couple of inches of turf with a spade and cover them that way. If you want an easier life, check you have power where you need it before you tape power cables down, check your speakers are working before you tape speaker cables down, and line-test before you tape signal cables down.

•  Take care where you place toolboxes and other similar objects. Under the console or on top of the amp rack or on a table is good. On the floor in a public aisle or backstage walkway is bad.

•  Take extra care - where you put your feet as well as where you put equipment - in poorly-lit areas.

Speakers are often stacked, raised on stands, or flown. Lighting is always raised, and usually flown. Flown systems should only ever be suspended from certified load-bearing mounting-points by qualified personnel. If a speaker or lantern falls 4 metres into a crowded auditorium it will probably kill someone. If you need us - or anyone else - to fly a system of ours at your event, speak to us about it before hiring it.

However, more people are injured (and more equipment is damaged) by stacks or stands collapsing or falling over than by flown equipment falling.

Things that may make speaker stacks or stands unstable are:

•  Uneven or sloping surfaces (this is a particular issue at outdoor events).

•  Unstable or weak supports. If you are putting heavy speakers on the edge of the stage, make sure the stage can support them safely. Do not stack speakers on trestle tables, on damaged tables or stands, or on anything that is not designed to carry their weight. Make sure stands are rated for the weight you are placing on them.

•  Wind. Do not underestimate wind forces at outdoor events. Strong winds can put a couple of tons of pressure on a satellite dish (which is not very big and has holes in it!). Speaker stacks often have a much bigger surface area (and no holes). Stacks may need to be pegged down - or secured in some other way - to be safe.

•  Anything placed on top of something else can fall off it (in a speaker stack, the boxes on top can fall - or be pushed, dragged or blown - off the boxes underneath). A wooden box can kill someone if it falls on their head. Just putting a ratchet strap around the stack - preferably threaded through the handles or in some way prevented from slipping off  - will make it much safer.

Other stacked equipment - like a mixing console or effects rack - needs the same attention. Our 12U effects rack weighs over 50Kg. Wobbly domestic tables are not suitable for this kind of equipment. We can provide our own stands and tables for this, but please let us know beforehand if we need to bring them.

Other Safety Issues

Where there are a lot of people, you may need to think about crowd control and first-aid.

Crowd control may require physical restraints (barriers, fences and gates) and/or personnel (stewards or security staff). First-aid requires one or more staff with a recognised first-aid qualification.

Even if it doesn't do much to reduce the hazard or the risk, you should ALWAYS do whatever you can. If there was something you could have done that was better than nothing, the first thing any investigating authority will ask is why - knowing that - you did nothing.