Rigging Audits and Daily Sign-Offs: Keeping Festival Stages Safe

Introduction

When tens of thousands of festival-goers gather in front of a massive stage, safety becomes as important as the music. One of the less glamorous but most critical aspects of large-scale festival safety is rigging – the network of trusses, cables, hoists, and hardware holding up lights, speakers, screens, and scenic elements overhead. Rigging failures can lead to catastrophic consequences, as seen in past tragedies at major events (www.festivalsforall.com). This is why festival productions around the world enforce rigorous rigging audits and daily sign-offs. These daily inspections and documentation protocols are lifesavers – preventing accidents before they happen and ensuring accountability if something ever does go wrong.

In the high-pressure environment of festival production, it’s tempting to assume that once a stage is built and running, everything will stay safe. However, day-to-day changes – from overnight weather and vibration to last-minute creative tweaks – can introduce new risks. A bolt can loosen after a night of strong winds; an ambitious stage manager might want to hang an extra banner or light without proper approval. As a veteran festival organizer advises, “Never assume yesterday’s safe rigging is still safe today without checking.” To safeguard performers, crew, and audiences, festival teams must treat every new day as a new opportunity for a thorough safety audit of all overhead gear and structures.

Below, we share hard-earned wisdom on establishing a solid routine of rigging audits and daily sign-offs. These practices come from decades of festival production experience across music festivals, cultural expos, and live events on multiple continents. From the glitziest mega-concerts in the United States to monsoon-challenged outdoor stages in India, the principles remain the same. We’ll cover how to implement competent person inspections each morning, document every fix (with photos and names), prohibit any ad-hoc additions after sign-off, keep spare rated hardware on hand for emergencies, and maintain paper trails that “save lives and lawsuits.” By the end of this guide, both emerging and seasoned festival producers will have a clearer roadmap to rigging safety excellence.

Morning Inspections by a Competent Person

Each festival day should begin with a fresh pair of experienced eyes on all rigging points and stage structures. Industry best practice is to require daily inspections of all overhead equipment by a “competent person” – typically a head rigger, structural engineer, or safety officer qualified in rigging safety. In several countries, laws or guidelines explicitly call for such competent person checks. For example, UK regulations (under LOLER, the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations) mandate that lifting equipment and accessories be regularly inspected and that a qualified person examines any lifting setup before use (www.stagesafe.co.uk). Similarly, many US festival safety plans align with OSHA guidance, insisting on a designated rigging supervisor to walk the site each morning before the public arrives.

What does a morning rigging audit involve? The competent inspector systematically verifies that overnight conditions or prior usage haven’t compromised any component. Key things they look for include:

• Trusses and connections: Are truss spans straight and level? All bolts, pins, and clips in place and secure? Any signs of bending or stress at joints?
• Hoists and motors: Are chain hoists or motors holding steady without slippage? Brake systems functioning and controllers safely stowed? No unusual sounds or leaks (e.g. hydraulic oil) from motors?
• Cables and slings: Check all wire rope slings, synthetic straps, shackles, and carabiners. Look for frayed cables, worn shackle pins, or any deformed hardware. Any damaged or questionable item must be swapped out immediately – no exceptions.
• Safety backups: Ensure all safety cables (secondary supports) are correctly attached for lights, speakers, and scenic elements. If an item’s primary support fails, the safety cable prevents it from falling on people.
• Roof and structure: If the stage has a roof or ground support structure, inspect joints, baseplates, ballast (e.g. concrete weights or water barrels), and guy-wires (wind bracing). After strong winds, guy ropes may need re-tensioning. Confirm that nothing has shifted in the structure (for instance, check that anemometer readings have been logged if overnight winds were high).
• Surroundings: Make sure no new hazards have encroached – for example, a vendor might have parked a tall vehicle under a rigging point overnight, or someone ran a cable that could snag on a lifting line.

These checks should be thorough but also efficient – a well-drilled crew can audit a typical main stage rig in the early morning hours, long before fans arrive. Many large festivals employ checklists to ensure consistency. For instance, Glastonbury Festival in the UK has safety officers and structural engineers roaming each stage at daybreak with detailed checklists covering every shackle and pin. Coachella in California similarly mandates daily sign-offs by the lead rigger for each stage, only after which are production crews allowed to power up sound and lights for the day’s show.

It’s crucial that the person doing the inspection truly has the authority and knowledge to deem something unsafe and stop the show if needed. This is why festival organizers must empower the safety team: if the morning audit finds a critical issue – say a cracked truss weld or a loose motor mount – the team should have the clout to delay doors opening or hold off on an act’s soundcheck until the problem is fixed and re-inspected. Festivals like Tomorrowland (Belgium) and Rock in Rio (Brazil) are known to bring in independent structural experts for their eye-popping stage designs, precisely to ensure that an objective, qualified professional signs off on safety each day. The extra cost is negligible compared to the potential cost of a collapse.

Requiring these morning inspections might even be a contractual obligation. Some artist riders (especially for superstar headliners) demand proof of stage safety certifications before the artist will perform. Whether required or not, a daily rigging audit is simply best practice. The devastating stage collapses in 2011 (Indiana State Fair in the U.S., Pukkelpop in Belgium, and Ottawa Bluesfest in Canada during a Cheap Trick performance) were wake-up calls for the industry (www.npr.org). In some of those cases, it emerged that no official safety inspection had been conducted on the temporary stage (www.ems1.com). Now, reputable festival producers won’t take that gamble – they build a daily inspection routine into the schedule as non-negotiable.

Document Every Fix with Photos and Names

Spotting an issue is only half the battle – what truly elevates a festival’s safety culture is documenting what you found and how you fixed it. Every time the morning inspection (or any rigging check) uncovers something that needs attention, it should be logged in writing, photographed, and signed off by the person who fixed it. This creates a clear history of the rigging’s status and the actions taken to maintain safety.

Consider this scenario: during a morning check at Lollapalooza (Chicago), a rigger notices that one lighting fixture clamp on the main stage truss is slightly loose and has shifted position. The fix might be as simple as re-tightening the clamp and securing it with a secondary safety pin. However, instead of just quietly handling it, the rigger documents it: they take a quick photo of the loose clamp before and after the fix, and jot down in the log, “Main Stage truss – fixture #12 clamp tightened and secured by [Name] at 8:15 AM.” Now there’s a paper trail proving that the issue was identified and resolved.

Why go to this length? Because logging and photographing fixes serves multiple purposes:

• Accountability: When a specific crew member signs their name to a repair, it encourages ownership and quality of work. Everyone is more careful and diligent when their name is attached to a safety action.
• Continuity: Festivals often run several days, sometimes with rotating crew or overnight shifts. A detailed log ensures that new team members or incoming night crews know the history. For example, if a lighting tech notices tape on a truss with yesterday’s date and a note “DO NOT USE – awaiting replacement,” they can check the log to understand what happened. It prevents miscommunication in the hustle of a festival.
• Evidence: In the rare event that something does fail, these records can pinpoint what was done about it and when. This can be critical for internal investigations or insurance and legal inquiries later. If you can show that a certain shackle was found defective and replaced promptly (with photo evidence), it demonstrates due diligence and can direct blame towards, say, a manufacturer’s defect rather than negligence on the festival’s part.
• Trend-spotting: Over a multi-day event (or across annual editions of a festival), written logs help spot patterns. If the same point, say the screen support on Stage B, needed adjustment two days in a row, that’s a red flag to perhaps reduce its load or better secure it. These insights only emerge if fixes are recorded methodically.

In practice, many festival production teams use digital apps or simple templates for these logs. A tablet or clipboard might carry the “Rigging Check & Fix Log” for each stage. Some go a step further and radio in their fixes to a centralized safety coordinator who updates a master log in real-time. Photographic evidence is especially potent. For instance, the team at Splendour in the Grass (Australia) in 2019 instituted a policy where any replaced hardware (e.g., a bent D-shackle or damaged sling) was bagged and tagged after removal, and a photo of it alongside the new replacement was attached to the day’s safety report. This level of detail not only boosts confidence among the crew and artists, but it’s also invaluable if an outside safety auditor or government inspector shows up. You can literally flip through a folder (or swipe through a tablet) and show them: “Here’s everything we checked and fixed today.”

Always include names (or at least initials) of who did the fix and who verified it. Many festivals implement a two-person rule for critical fixes – one fixes, another double-checks. If so, record both names. This mirrors practices in fields like aviation maintenance, where one mechanic signs off the work and another inspector co-signs after verification.

Remember, documentation should never be about blame, but about accuracy and transparency. Cultivate a culture where crew feel proud to log their work. When a tour or festival has an impeccable safety record, those logs become badges of honour for the team.

No Ad-Hoc Changes After Sign-Off

One of the cardinal rules of rigging safety can be summed up as: once the rigging is signed off, you don’t touch it without approval. After the competent person’s daily inspection and the all-clear is given, nothing should be added, removed, or modified on the rig without going through a new round of assessment. This might frustrate some creative or operational staff, but it’s a non-negotiable barrier against accidents.

Why ban ad-hoc additions or changes? Because even a seemingly minor alteration can upset the carefully balanced forces and safety factors in a rigging system. For example:

• A marketing team decides at the last minute to hang a sponsor’s banner from the downstage truss. It sounds harmless, but that banner can catch wind like a sail. If a strong gust comes (not uncommon at outdoor festivals), it could dramatically increase wind load on the truss, risking a collapse if not accounted for in the design. If this banner wasn’t in the original plan and calculations, it has no business being up there post sign-off.
• A lighting designer swaps a fixture for a heavier one on the fly, or adds two extra moving lights to a truss to “enhance the look.” Those extra 50 kg might overload a point that was already near its limit, or change the center of gravity on the truss. Bolting them on without recalculating loads and obtaining clearance from the rigging supervisor undermines the safety margin.
• A crew member re-routes a cable or hangs a piece of decor on a roof beam out of convenience. They might think, “It’s just a lightweight prop, it’ll be fine.” But they may not realize that the beam is part of a finely tuned structure – even a small object could interfere with how loads are distributed or, if it falls, injure someone below.

Real-world incidents have proven this rule necessary. In a seminar reviewing stage collapse disasters, experts highlighted that field modifications to a stage structure without proper engineering review can be disastrous (www.festivalsforall.com). In fact, an extreme case was reported where removal of some structural bracing “in the field” (without approval) contributed to a collapse (www.festivalsforall.com). When a stage or rig is designed and inspected, that sign-off represents a snapshot in time – the rig is safe as inspected. The moment you change anything, however small, that snapshot is no longer fully valid.

Festival producers should instill this discipline across all departments. Communication is key: everyone from artistic directors to vendor coordinators must understand that nothing gets attached overhead after the morning sign-off unless a safety officer and head rigger review it. To enforce this, some events literally have colored tags or zip-ties on rigging points after inspection – if your gear isn’t tagged, it’s not allowed. Others have a simple rule that any late addition has to wait until the next available inspection (or trigger a special inspection).

At Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) in Las Vegas, for instance, the scale of production is enormous – multiple stages with massive LED walls and effects. Their production team is known for tight control on changes: any time a performer wants to fly a new prop or a technician needs to add a lighting instrument, it’s run through the Safety Officer and often a structural engineer if it impacts the stage structure. This might mean saying “no” to requests that come in an hour before showtime – but better to have an annoyed artist than a dangerous rig. The legendary Glastonbury Pyramid Stage crew similarly report that once that Pyramid’s giant roof and video screens are signed off, “not even a mirror ball gets added without clearance.”

To facilitate creativity within safety, plan ahead. If you’re the festival organizer, encourage all teams to finalize their production needs early and include all possible elements in the initial design and load calculations. That way, you’re not firefighting last-minute requests. But if surprises do come up (they always do), have a protocol: last-minute addition requests must go to the production manager and safety team, who will evaluate the request. Possibly, a quick on-the-spot secondary inspection can be done for a minor add-on – but it must be formally checked and signed off anew.

Ultimately, an ad-hoc addition might seem trivial until it becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Don’t take that chance. Create a culture where “no unauthorized rigging changes” is a mantra everyone accepts.

Keep Spare Rated Hardware On Hand

A morning inspection is only valuable if you can promptly fix the issues it uncovers. That’s why any well-prepared festival production keeps a stock of spare hardware and equipment on site – and not just any spares, but the right type of rated rigging hardware that matches what’s in use. In safety-critical systems, you can’t substitute a cheap or wrong component just because you have it lying around; you need suitable replacements ready to go.

Picture a scenario: It’s Day 2 of a three-day festival in Sydney, Australia, and during checks you find one of the 1-ton bow shackles linking a chain motor to the truss has a slight bend (maybe it was overloaded in setup or came defective from the supplier). That shackle is now a ticking time bomb – it must be replaced immediately. If you don’t have a spare rated for the same load or higher on hand, you’re stuck. You might be hours away from a supplier, and the stage can’t safely be used until that piece is swapped. This is exactly the kind of delay and risk that spare inventories prevent.

Recommended spares and equipment to have at a festival site:

• Shackles and Connectors: A variety of bow and D-shackles (0.5 ton, 1 ton, 2 ton, etc., as used in your rig) with proper safety pins. Also spare quick links, carabiners, and other connectors, all load-rated.
• Steel Cables and Slings: Extra wire rope slings of common lengths (with proper thimbles and ferrules swaged), endless round slings (soft spansets), and polyester slings, matching the capacities used on your hangs. If you use steel bridles (wire rope for spanning two points), have a few pre-made spares.
• Clamp hardware: Spare truss clamps, half-couplers, cheeseboroughs, etc., especially if holding lights or speakers. They can deform under stress or overtightening – a cracked clamp should never be reused.
• Chain Hoist / Motor parts: If using electric chain hoists (motors), ideally have at least one spare motor per critical stage that can be swapped in. Also have extra chain bags, control cables, and remote controllers, because if one of these fails, you need to lower or adjust the rig ASAP. Some festivals even keep a manual chain hoist (chain block) as backup in case a motor dies and you need to hold something up or down safely in the interim.
• Bolts and Pins: The specific high-tensile bolts used in truss connections or stage roof joints, plus any steel pins or R-clips (safety pins) used to secure them. Small, cheap, but if one goes missing and you have no replacement, people might be tempted to “jimmy” something unsafe. Don’t give room for that – have identical spares.
• Electronics & Safety Gear: Spare batteries for wind speed sensors (anemometers) and any load monitoring devices. Also keep extra fall arrest harnesses and lanyards for crew, so no one says “I had to climb without a harness because mine broke and there was no spare.”

The key word is “rated”. Each of these items comes with a certified Working Load Limit (WLL). Spare hardware must meet or exceed the ratings of what’s originally installed. You might even spec slightly stronger spares in case you need to upsize something. For example, having a couple of 2-ton shackles in a rig mostly using 1-ton shackles can be handy if you need to carry a heavier load unexpectedly or double up supports.

Having spares readily available also reinforces the no-compromise mindset. Crew won’t be tempted to tape up a frayed sling or “make do” with the wrong shackle if the correct replacement is right there in the site storage. It’s insurance not just against failure but against human nature to cut corners under pressure.

A good practice seen at events like EDC and Ultra Music Festival is to have a small “rigging emergency kit” at each stage – a tough box containing a few of each critical component. In one instance at Ultra Miami, a large LED wall segment was starting to peel off its securing clamp (due to intense bass vibrations) just as gates were about to open. The stage crew paused the opening, quickly grabbed spare clamps from the rigging kit and reinforced the LED wall attachment. Within minutes, the problem was solved and documented, and the show proceeded safely. Imagine if they had to run across the site or drive to a hardware store for those clamps – it simply wouldn’t happen in time.

Spare equipment is not a wasted expense; think of it as buying peace of mind. Unused spares can be returned to inventory after the festival for future use. But if something does go wrong, having the right gear on hand can spell the difference between a minor hiccup and a major incident (or cancellation).

Paper Trails: Saving Lives and Liability

All the safety practices in the world are only as good as your ability to prove them and learn from them. Paper trails – the records of inspections, sign-offs, and repairs – are often overlooked heroes of festival safety. It’s no exaggeration to say they save lives (by enforcing consistent safety checks) and save festival organisers from lawsuits (by demonstrating due diligence).

Firstly, maintaining a paper (or digital) trail ensures that the safety processes actually happen. When crew know that every step must be logged, they are more likely to perform each step conscientiously. It institutionalises a culture of “check, fix, and log it.” As safety professionals often say, “if it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.” So writing it down makes sure it does happen. For example, if an inspection checklist has a blank next to “Main Stage roof clearance checked: ____ (initials)”, nobody wants to be the one who left it blank. The next person up the chain (e.g., the Safety Manager) will see that and ask questions. Thus, the simple existence of checklists and sign-off forms creates a chain of responsibility that compels thoroughness.

Secondly, a complete documentation trail will be your best friend in court or during regulatory inquiries. Festivals, especially large-scale ones, are big enterprises and unfortunately can become legal targets if an accident occurs. Imagine a scenario where a light fixture falls and injures someone in the crowd. Investigators and lawyers will descend asking: “Was the rigging properly installed and inspected? Can you show us?” If you can pull out a binder (or a cloud drive) with every day’s inspection reports, signed by a qualified person, plus logs of any maintenance, you’re showing that the festival took all reasonable precautions. This won’t stop an investigation, but it can drastically change its tone – from criminal negligence to perhaps an unfortunate unforeseeable accident. On the other hand, if you have no records, it will be presumed that you did not do those safety checks, even if you verbally claim you did. Paperwork is your proof.

To illustrate, consider the contrasting outcomes of two hypothetical festivals:
– Festival A has no formal rigging check records. An accident happens. In court, the organisers can only say “we always check our rigging, we swear,” but have nothing to show. The injured party’s lawyer paints them as irresponsible, and maybe they lose the case and face heavy damages.
– Festival B has meticulous logs. The logs show that on the day of the accident, inspections were done and everything was marked safe. Perhaps the accident was caused by a hidden defect in a truss not detectable by normal means. The existence of records proves Festival B was not careless; they did what any competent organiser would do. This could protect them from negligence claims and focus the issue on, say, the equipment manufacturer or a freak event, rather than the festival’s practices.

In some countries, having proper documentation might also satisfy regulatory compliance and reduce the likelihood of authorities shutting down your event after an incident. For example, authorities in Germany or Singapore are known to be very strict on engineering documentation. If something looks off, you may be asked to produce certificates and inspection records on the spot. If you have them, the show might go on; if not, you could be forced to clear that stage.

What constitutes a good paper trail for rigging? At minimum, have:

• Daily Inspection Checklists: A form each day for each stage, listing key items to inspect (truss connections, hoists, etc.) with a checkbox or initial line. Signed and dated by the inspector and counter-signed by the safety manager.
• Issue and Repair Log: As discussed, a log of problems found and fixes made (with names and timestamps). This might be part of the above checklist or a separate document.
• Equipment Certifications: Keep copies of certifications for critical gear on file (either on-site or in a digital folder accessible on site). This includes documents like engineering drawings and sign-offs for the stage structure, hoist certification records (e.g., an annual test certificate for each motor and sling, per regulations like LOLER), and structural calculations for unusual setups. A CROSS safety report in the UK noted the importance of having design checks by chartered engineers and that all documentation should be compiled in a safety file on site (www.cross-safety.org) (www.stagesafe.co.uk).
• Sign-Off Sheets: A clear statement that today’s rigging is safe to use, signed by the head of rigging or structural engineer each day. Some festivals use a big sign-off board backstage, others a paper for each day. This is psychologically powerful – when crew see that sign, they know everything has been looked at, and conversely if it’s not signed, nobody goes on that stage.

Make sure these documents are stored safely (protected from rain if on paper, backed up if digital). At the end of the festival, don’t toss them out – they should be archived. They are part of the event’s safety history and can inform planning for the next year.

Finally, beyond their practical uses, paper trails contribute to a culture of professionalism. Top festival producers around the world – from Michael Eavis at Glastonbury to Pasquale Rotella of EDC – have fostered teams that take pride in doing things “by the book” when it comes to safety. It’s not red tape; it’s part of the show. As one production manager famously told his crew, “Our audience will never see our safety paperwork, but they’re alive to enjoy the show because of it.” That really says it all.

Key Takeaways

• Inspect rigging every day of the festival (or before each use) with a competent person who can identify hazards and has authority to halt unsafe setups. Never assume yesterday’s secure rigging is still 100% today without a fresh check.
• Document everything: if you find a problem, log what it was and how it was fixed – include dates, times, names, and photos. This creates accountability and a history of the rigging’s safety status.
• No last-minute surprises: Once the daily safety sign-off is done, do not add or change anything on the rigging without proper review. Ad-hoc additions (a light here, a banner there) can dangerously upset the engineered balance. Enforce a strict protocol for any modifications.
• Keep spare safety hardware on site. Stock extra rated shackles, slings, clamps, and other rigging components so you can replace any faulty gear immediately. Having the right part at hand prevents risky “make-do” fixes and show delays.
• Maintain a paper trail of inspections and approvals. These records save lives by ensuring checks are done diligently, and they can save you in court by proving you took responsible measures. As the saying goes, if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen – so document it!