Health & Safety

Health

How important our H&S compliances are at events, yet we fail at every event in practically every department, other than a few individual pockets of excellence working around a world of other risky suppliers or production companies putting the entire production at risk; is so the norm.

When I say health, it really starts with a good nights sleep and healthy breakfast and the drive to the venue using your seatbelt even if you’re sitting at the back. The clothes you wear, the shoes on your feet and the amount of water you are consuming are the most primary health related matters that are most often ignored. Health is about setting personal standards, just like hygiene is and this cannot be taught beyond a certain point, it comes from an attitude.

I cannot bear when people tell me, especially my crew, trying to earn brownie points by saying we worked so much that we did not even eat our lunch or dinner. I find that deplorable and very uncool. The fact that you did not eat, put you at a health risk both short term & long term, as well as made you focus a lot on hunger (much more than the time it took for you to actually eat) rather than focus on the work in hand. Now about drinking water, does your urine have to be so yellow is a manifestation of the fact that you are not hydrated enough and that’s bad especially if you’re working in the sun?

Protecting your ears is a very important H&S compliance and nobody can do that for you but yourself, for example if I am at a event and the volume isn’t to my liking/level then I am with 9 DB filters in my ear moulds and if its atrociously loud then I am 18db filters in my ear moulds. I just cannot understand why we expose ourselves to such bludgeoning volumes. I can’t stand even for 5 mins for some gigs people expose themselves to for at least 2 to 3 hours. By simple logic, if anything hurts my ears then whatever the decibel level is, it isn’t good for me.

My shoes are the most expensive piece of gear I have when I allocate a budget to my personal health, if I am going to be standing at a venue the whole day then I am not going to compromise on what shoes I am wearing and so should you. My socks likewise too, I do not wish to be reeking of foul odor when I take my footwear out. Clothes, jackets, caps, shades are as important to you as your measurement tools are.

Safety

Safety is a very misunderstood subject and when people ask me why do events fail in safety standards my simple answer is ignorance or act of god, whilst the former is 99.9% the problem. Why do we have such poor standards, why isn’t it budgeted for. The most powerful message I have read in recent times on safety is “If you think Safety is expensive try Accident”

I think that only if regulation is put in by the government will safety improve otherwise it will just keep happening. I can’t even begin to tell you in how many events accidents don’t get recorded or reported and how all those incidents are needed to come to light in order for us to learn and correct them. Unless we put the fear of God in people with fines, cancelling of insurance and jail term, we will not be able to achieve this and this is the honest truth. Safety has to be made a habit with our staff and not a drudgery to comply with. H&S should be followed with pride and educating through actions is the greatest way of creating awareness for H&S.

Truss Safety

Truss or scaffolding falling is a norm and even if you follow standards there is a possibility that the other service provider doesn’t, be it infrastructure of electrical. We have very low safety standards due to being uneducated about it and the very fact that we do not have more than 8 rated roof structures in India tells you how deplorable the safety norms are. The most surprising thing is also that those who have good safe structures are the ones who will ballast their structures and the unsafe ones have no ballasting at all. And when it comes to scaffolding systems, I dread even standing near any of the run of the mill rostrums and scaffs available locally. However I can safely say that I am seeing rapid improvement here in companies investing in Layher or Chinese scaff similar to Layher, but much safer than what’s made in fabricated sweatshops back home.

Electrical Safety

Grossly misunderstood is the problem of electrical safety that causes the second most accidents and fires. When will we learn that water cannot be used to douse an electrical fire and it will just cause more damage, whilst we use the cheapest cables and connectors. Electricity is something that is invisible to our eyes but potentially very hazardous without the correct apparatus and protection. This is why so many electrical accidents happen. Its solely because we only fear what we see. We are oblivious to the dangers that aren’t evident and this is why I am far much more concerned of electrical safety. In fact I am so serious about it that most top tier electrical contractors in India are fully aware that it is mandatory to ground all my structures especially the PA towers or I will stop work on site.

Numerous cases of event fires are due to pyros and chemicals that are used on-site, they are time bombs waiting to destroy every production and it’s a long road to getting there in India especially at social events and weddings I get mortified when I see the use of dangerous pyros. Here too, I am seeing progress, but it is not happening at pace that’s required for our industry.

Lifting Equipment

We have no understanding of working loads and lifting equipment and I am appalled at so many shockers I witness on site. And compared to the west, we aren’t even looking like we are willing to start, forget play catch up with them.

We need courses, we need workshops, we need awareness, and we need change, BE THE CHANGE! And in that light I pledge to help anyone who wishes to make his or her event space a safer place to work.

Warren D’souza - Founder, Managing Director, & Working Member of Sound.Com

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