Health and safety in music is a very serious thing, if safety guidelines aren’t followed, there is a serious risk of injury, or even fatality, to both crew members and audience members via electrocution, crushing, etcetera.
Examples of risks:
- Heavy objects
- A lot of live music equipment is incredibly heavy and can very easily cause strain injury if crew members attempt to lift them without adequate help or safety precautions they can cause serious strain injuries or even more serious injuries from dropping equipment body parts, etcetera.
- If heavy equipment isn’t stored correctly, or if its left in an unsafe place, it puts the audience and crew members in danger as it may fall and cause injuries anywhere from light concussion to crushing entire body parts or even as far as fatality.
- Electronic equipment
- Electronic equipment should be pat tested to make sure they are safe to use and not a risk to anyones health via electrocution.
- All crew members must know the correct safety precautions, for example not having spillable fluids near power sources, or having bare wires, etcetera, for setting up and using electronic equipment so that they dont place them selves at risk of electrocution.
- All the risks related to electronic equipment are very serious as electrocution can give incredibly serious injuries, or, more likely, fatality.
- Fluids
- Fluids should be kept away from electronic equipment, however, if unable to do so, the correct safety precautions must be followed to ensure that they dont spill onto electronic equipment.
- Bodily fluids are, unfortunately, a common occurrence in live music as audience members, and even crew members, can get very intoxicated, meaning that they are very likely to pass all sorts of bodily fluids in dangerous places, for example vomit, urine, and blood. To help keep the venue safe, the correct safety precautions must be followed, for example, electronic equipment must be kept out of reach to audience members, and the venue should be regularly cleaned to ensure theres nothing to slip on, also, these bodily fluids can very easily spread contagious diseases as well so keeping the venue clean can prevent this.
- Fire hazards
- Fires can cause a multitude of problems, first of all, they are incredibly hot, obviously, and can cause serious burn injuries from either touching the fire itself, or anything heated by it. Second of all, they cause structural damage to the venue, meaning that floors, roofs, walls, or other structural features, can fall and cause serious injury. Third of all, fires make electronic equipment much more dangerous, the list could go on forever, fires make everything much more dangerous.
- Fire hazards must be made evidently clear to everyone to ensure that they dont cause fires, also, all crew members should know the proper safety precautions to ensure they dont cause fires.
- If a fire does present itself, all crew members must know the correct safety procedures to keep themselves and members of the audience safe in the event of a fire, for example they must know where all the fire exits are so that they can help people to evacuate and so they know where to evacuate themselves, all fire exits should be made known to the audience before the performance, etcetera.