| Show 8t33itC3ii6Spa F12 The Salt Lake Tribune CALENDAR Friday December 26 1997 Group Says Safety Should Be Top Concert Priority BY DAVE FURMAN KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE For most of us the Who concert tragedy in 1979 in Cincinnati in which 1 1 people died was a blip on the pop music radar screen something we were appalled by then and maybe remember something about now For Paul Wertheimer it was a experience He worked for the city of Cincinnati and arrived on the scene within minutes of the first reports coming over the news The first bulletins said six or seven people had died at the concert everybody thought it was bad drugs or something he says I got there early enough that they were still removing bodies There were shoes and coats all it looked like over the place Auschwitz I couldnt shake it Maybe saying that Wertheimer is haunted by the evening is too strong But it did lead him to form Crowd ManageChicago-basement Strategies which studies concert safety Wertheimer becomes angry discussing the large number of injuries and deaths at rock concerts and he is appalled at a concert industry that will not take responsibility for safety We keep making the same mistakes over and over again as an industry says Wertheimer I'm just making a common-sens- e statement: Make it better The industry is always on the verge of and then they doing something don't do it Otherwise there wouldn't be a need for me to do this As head of CMS Wertheimer does a variety of things including researching specific bands and problems at their shows and g d Steve Baker The Salt Lake Tribune tracking injuries around the world in the Rock Safety Database Much of what he learns is put into the annual Rock Concert Safety Survey Report which is the only annual review of crowd safety problems at pop music shows He also recently built a Web site: wwwcrowdsafecom The recently published fifth edition of his review is interesting reading It goes a long way toward supporting Wertheimers contention that the industry including the promoters and the people who run the venues need to police shows better Time and time again problems arise because of festival seating unmanaged mosh pits and inappropriate alcohol sales The core of Wertheimers central argument is that the industry needs to draw up and stick to a basic set of guidelines for safety at rock shows That CMS has published such guidelines and that several major industry organizations (such as the North American Concert Promoters Association) havent he says underscores the basic look the other way altitude Wa a iL Lm mi jft iVr-ii- H il l iftnr 1 iffii ifniffl JL1 f J ftrtfhmfauftiilA tfflVmftlii k Tl iltumJfti ftughil ntniffll fiWwiitMiilfr) iffilni tftiTnfrii THih ifirfl |
