Event Safety Insights Issue Three | Spring 2017 | Page 18
What Comes Next:
Preparing to Face the
‘New Normal’ By Eric Stuart
How incredibly sad it is that before
we even managed to arrive home from this year’s Event Safety Sum-
mit, we were once again counting the cost of another dreadful fire
and the loss of 36 lives (‘Ghost Ship’ Warehouse Fire, Oakland Cali-
fornia, December 2, 2016) . I cannot begin to express my sorrow for
the victims and sympathy for their families. But I am also angry: angry
that after such a successful conference, our memory of it should be
blighted in this way. Was this not foreseeable, predictable and if so,
entirely preventable?
Maybe if we had some attendance by ‘the TLAs’, the three letter
agencies, they might see what it is we are seeking to achieve and
how keen we are to do so. The Ghost Ship Fire should never have
happened and should never be repeated...but it will be, and we all
know it. Just because we care does not mean everyone does. Just
because we can foresee such eventualities, does not mean others
do.
The location of the Event Safety Summit seemed appropriate to me,
just 90 minutes from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A few miles from
where President Lincoln gave his address on Thursday, November
19th,1863, just over 150 years ago. So ap