TromboneChat

This makes no sense on several levels.



This wouldn't have happened in a Scooby-Doo cartoon... the edge of the trap door is always obvious.

Yikes. Yeah it almost seems like it can't not be in purpose, unless it's someone who doesn't work there, in which case they should never be allowed to operate the stage lift (or even know where to find the controls for it). I used to be a stage manager and stagehand at a couple venues, and I can't imagine forgetting where the trap is, or then not realizing that a piano is partially on it as it moved... Even then, those lifts usually have an emergency stop button (and modern ones often have a dead man's switch, although that's obviously not the case here), so I'm puzzled by the reflex of running to the piano instead of stopping the lift first. When the person realizes the piano is being partially lifted, it's still early enough to stop and lower the lift again with little to no damage to the instrument.


Then again, shortly before I worked at one of those places, a piano was rolled right off the edge of the stage by a zealous caterer who was impatient to start setting up...

Related for anybody who finds yourself in a similar situation, trying to stop and catch something far too large is how people end up dead on job sites. When it is clear that it is going, just get out of the way. Gravity will win EVERY time.

Cheers,
Andy

That’s the first thing I thought of. He’s lucky to be alive

Darwin doesn’t always prevail.

I don't understand the premise of that elevator.

At my college, our concert hall had a lift in the floor like that that went DOWN, to get pianos, tympani, etc. to storage space elsewhere. (And it could only be operated from a box that plugged into a socket on the lift itself).

But this is going UP... WAY UP. That doesn't happen by accident, it had to be built to do that. What purpose of the concert hall is served by raising something up that high?

It's not going to storage space. I'm pretty sure this venue isn't hosting rock concerts where the guitarist is dramatically raised heavenward during his solo.

???

Organ console, hence the decorative elements facing the camera

ithinknot wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 11:37 am Organ console, hence the decorative elements facing the camera

Is the organ console behind the lifted portion or on top of it? Seems like a huge elevation change.

I also can't believe the poor design of the lift system - or the "operator error!"

I'm afraid this will only add another to the list of "Polish jokes!"

robcat2075 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 11:30 am I don't understand the premise of that elevator.

At my college, our concert hall had a lift in the floor like that that went DOWN, to get pianos, tympani, etc. to storage space elsewhere. (And it could only be operated from a box that plugged into a socket on the lift itself).

But this is going UP... WAY UP. That doesn't happen by accident, it had to be built to do that. What purpose of the concert hall is served by raising something up that high?

It's not going to storage space. I'm pretty sure this venue isn't hosting rock concerts where the guitarist is dramatically raised heavenward during his solo.

???

The lift itself might be storage space. It's not uncommon. One of the halls I mentioned above, where I worked, had no backstage area at stage level, with a couple wide, shallow steps going down to the stage (the hall in the video similarly seems to have steps at all stage access points). So no option of rolling a piano backstage. There was a lift like this that came up from the floor, which looked like a large cage, mounted on a pneumatic system one floor below the stage, and which was used to store either or both of the hall's two grand pianos when not in use. When they renovated the hall they changed that system to one that required less height, and were actually able to add a second level to the cage, doubling the storage space so that it could take the two pianos on one level and a couple carts full of 8x4 risers.

If that's an organ console... it's a BIG organ console with poor sight lines for the audience.

If it's storage... why the decorations?

My guess was that it's some sort of Soviet-bloc manufacturing limitation...

"You need 3-meter elevator for concert hall, comrade? Bulgarian Elevator Collective make 10 meter elevator. You remember stop at 3 meters!"

Also as a Stage Manger and concert stage hand, if the guy had just let the piano be, it might have stayed there. All the weight is forward of the keyboard. It moved when the lift came up, but it was really close to the balance point.