MOBO Awards 2013 - Major ***FAIL***

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Originally Posted by laserman

...what you see on the video to what happened doesn't show on the video.

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Please explain what that means. I saw clear bright flashes of light on faces, vivid green so bright that even widely diverged to form areas several centimetres wide, they'd still have to be well over maximum permissible exposure to look as bright as they did in an arena well lit by so many other sources. I suspect that much of the large aspect of those flashes was scattered light and that the actual area illuminated was a lot more intensely lit.

If the people who ran this show don't get sued over the coming weeks by people with persistent vision problems in the coming days, they'll be entirely too lucky. Trying to defend this situation on this forum, whoever you are, whatever your motive, is totally the wrong kind of damage limitation.

Edit:
I know what 1 or 2 millwatts of light looks like when briefly lighting the skin. Any one of many thousands of laser enthusiasts can tell you that those flashes were a lot stronger than that, well over ten times, and more like fifty or more. Videos aren't very good at capturing flashes that short unless they have a lot of energy.

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Originally Posted by laserman

Its was not unsafe....

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You can't possibly know that unless the exposure level at that point in the audience was measured prior to the show just in case the projector was stepped on which you said was unforseen . Equally just turning the laser down doesn't guarantee safe exposure either, it still needs to be measured and checked against MPE. I'm not saying it was unsafe. What I am saying is that unless it was measured it was an unknown quantity and thus potentially unsafe and thus the safest thing to have done would have been to kill the projector or the show.

I do agree with you that perhaps some posts could have been more gently worded.

I agree with you White-Light, too many people judge without knowledge and some of the comments and posts could be seen as liable and I feel unjust

I don't work for the company just on site with staging crew. I the guys done so many tests and what I can only presume was measurements with a device they had. Not sure, I hope they come on and make a comment. I have to defend people when I feel they were not in the wrong and things happen, we all know that. we can only learn from these things. I dont come on here too often as the blueroom too. Too many chiefs and stuff.
We should open a section on how bright sharpy lights are as I have seen them burn more than any lasers.

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Originally Posted by laserman

...on how bright sharpy lights are as I have seen them burn more than any lasers.

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Fair point (and police helicopters have to turn their searchlights off too before landing, or they can set light to grass fast enough to take out the helicopter). Lasers are different though, because the energy density is far higher. That;s sort of the whole point in using them as show devices. And it's why such extreme care is needed. Most lights that can start a fire will nto blind a person if scanned very fast, once, across a face. A laser incapable of starting a fire, barely capable of cutting black electrical tape, can damage vision in a fraction of a second.

See, the problem, is, while you talk of us 'not knowing because we were not there', you forget that we DO know a bit about light and lasers. If anyone's going to 'learn' from this, they'll have to do the same. Take it where you can get it, says I.

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I was crewing at this event and I can say that it was not the laser companies fault. During the performance the laser was stepped on by one of the Artists. The unit wasn't outputting hardly any power as the operator took the output right down. Green always looks bright on TV.

It upsets me that a lot of you guys on here are too quick to judge a company and try to put them down without knowing the facts.

The unit was put in that position and was pointing up for a camera shot. I know I was there in rehearsals. I like lasers and fascinated by the work people do and I have to say it looked stunning. Its unfortunate that this unit got pushed down.

The council signed off the whole event and I was on Pyros

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Sorry, I'm fairly sure that the MPE wasn't tested in advance for such an occurence, and if the operator had individual control of the head, it should heve been shut down completely.

I'm reasonably sure the council didn't sign off the 'repositioned' laser, and that they would have a similar opinion.

Of course, if the head was running as part of a group on a common DAC then turning it off may have also taken out some of the more prominent fixtures, at which point there's a moral dilemma, and relates to the 'show must go on' comments earlier.

I'm making a reasonable assumption here that the 532 heads being used here are in excess of 1W, maybe by quite a lot. This means that the lasing threshold alone at that range probably puts them well over MPE. And divergent lenses or other controls probably weren't in place because it was never supposed to be in the crowd in the first place.

Please be clear, I'm not trying to 'damn' the company concerned, but trying to dissect what happened and how it was resolved.
I'm not clear how I might have responded in the situation (a hand hovering nervously over the eStop??)

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Lets see the work you do Daniel and we can all comment on how great it is cant we !!

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To be fair, he does post it, and we do comment.

I agree with you Norty, its a moral dilema that they were in and what would you do. If you knew that safety would not be compromised would you carry on. i would have had my hand over the e-stop wondering what to do too.

Its a shame that some people on here name people/companies its not what we are about. We dont want to affect any ones business. We dont even know what the full story was so even I cant make judgement even though I was there. But I do have to say apart from the laser at stage front, the show was brill and was wicked, even though some people dont like the music. Was a good show from start to finish and seeing some good pyro action at the start and lots of explosions was good to see in the new arena in Glasgow.

for a stage hand who has no real knowledge of lasers you do seem to have a lot to say about laser safety and the company in question

if you have nothing to do with them why do you give a shit

Hi Darren,

Thanks for making contact via PM; I don't feel a response is required from myself.

Message received:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/9515/pmnb.png



With reference to your previous post, quoted below:

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Originally Posted by laserman

Still no need to post lots of stuff from Facebook is there. I hope the company take action against Daniels comments and posts as I know I would. I think the FB should not be posted on here with things like that.
people are far to quick to jump on the wagon and slate people when things don't go well. But have a look at all the upside of what they do. Why is there a picture of flat beams on here too. Those will be way above the MPE levels. Lets see the work you do Daniel and we can all comment on how great it is cant we !!

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I have not made a single libellous, slanderous or otherwise derogatory statement to any party; all four images were taken from public domain sources.
- The video was sourced from the BBC iPlayer website.
- The two Facebook images were taken from the public facing timeline of the company.
- The final image was taken from a video on the homepage of the company under their "Safety" section, from a video entitled "Laser Hire Safety".

Best Regards,
Dan

The problem is that I think its clear from the video that for the people in the front there, safety was compromised, and we are seeing that appropriate action probably wasn't enough.

that PM almost seems like a threat, I hope your not making threats laserman

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Originally Posted by danielbriggs

Hi Darren,

Thanks for making contact via PM; I don't feel a response is required from myself.

Message received:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/9515/pmnb.png



With reference to your previous post, quoted below:



I have not made a single libellous, slanderous or otherwise derogatory statement to any party; all four images were taken from public domain sources.
- The video was sourced from the BBC iPlayer website.
- The two Facebook images were taken from the public facing timeline of the company.
- The final image was taken from a video on the homepage of the company under their "Safety" section, from a video entitled "Laser Hire Safety".

Best Regards,
Dan

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