A couple of weeks ago I published a post about concerts that were held in Oklahoma City, where the concert attendees and band members were inside of plastic “bubbles” during the show. I commented that I would love to know what the local fire marshal had to say about the plan, and when I shared the link on Twitter, I heard from the OKC fire department. I spoke with the fire marshal’s office, and we agreed that the plastic bubbles could have a disastrous impact on egress during an emergency.
The challenge is that when a concert hall or other venue does not require a special permit for a particular event, there may not be a requirement for the facility to notify the fire department or to get the egress plan approved. This makes sense when we’re talking about a regular concert or theater production – the emergency plan is already in place. But there’s a fine line between a typical concert and one where the concertgoers are in plastic bubbles, and something like this could easily slip through the cracks.
When I heard about the concert, I thought perhaps it should be treated like a special amusement situation, but technically it doesn’t fit the IBC/IFC definition: SPECIAL AMUSEMENT BUILDING. A building that is temporary, permanent or mobile that contains a device or system that conveys passengers or provides a walkway along, around or over a course in any direction as a form of amusement arranged so that the egress path is not readily apparent due to visual or audio distractions or an intentionally confounded egress path, or is not readily available because of the mode of conveyance through the building or structure.
Maybe we need a code change proposal to cover events like the “space bubbles” concerts. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing from the OKC fire marshal’s office regarding their plan to notify event venues of the requirements for events where egress is affected.
While doing some research about special amusements and the applicable code requirements, I was reminded that the 37th anniversary of a special amusements tragedy recently passed. The video below is a short summary of what happened at the Six Flags Haunted Castle in Jackson Township, New Jersey, where 8 teenagers were killed. A story in NFPA Journal also describes the fire and the aftermath, as well as the resulting code changes.
By studying and learning from these tragedies, we can help keep them from happening again in the future.
Thanks to Ross Nudelman of Allegion for the link to this video series!
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Why do we always put profit over the safety and well being of people. In the case of the bubble, a persons access to an exit is impeded their use. Are the bubble made of Class A flame retardant material? And the Haunted House – flamable materials, no smoke detector or alarms , no sprinklers . A fire trap – profits over people. What do the insurers of these event places think? Maybe if they start forcing the owners to provide sprinklers we will see less and less death at these types of things.
Brings back memories. There was a two story brick duplex that one of the charitable organizations turned into a haunted house. They made a long labyrinth of narrow passageways that wended their way up a interior stairway to the second floor, through both duplexes and down the far stairwell then through the lower duplexes. The labyrinth had ramps with sudden offset that sent youngsters into foam rubber, and a bunch of scary things jumping out, lights buried in what appeared to be cotton. I took my two youngsters into this maze and when I left went right to the phone to tell the fire marshal this was a really great hazard with a chance to kill numerous kids since there were kids everywhere during my trip. My experience is folks who plan these events have never been exposed to the many “school of hard knocks” results of ignorance of common sense that comes from seeing a video like you presented for us. Thanks.
Excellent post . Should be must see for all AHJ’s to do your job . Stop giving free passes and extensions to these or any other building that is in blantent disregard of codes or laws
I remember this! — because of this I did not get to ride Great Adventures until I was an adult, since our high school would no longer take field trips there.
God bless those victims, who would have been in their early 50’s today.
Wow! That’s interesting that the high school administrators took such a strong stance.
– Lori