Rental mechanism to boost safety studied

A rental mechanism for public venues to ensure safety of performers while minimizing impact to the entertainment sector is being discussed, says Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung Yun-hung.

Yeung said stage designs have become more complex than 10 years ago and authorities could improve the rental mechanism to step up safety measures for performers. He said improvement measures will be announced in phases, with detailed guidelines on overhead stage effects.

"We can list comprehensive guidelines and review them one by one if we simply talk about the stage in the Mirror concert incident, but can these guidelines fully apply to another scenario? Do we need to be more specific about overhead objects?" Yeung said on television yesterday.

He is also worried that guidelines that are too detailed would limit innovative ideas.

As reported by The Standard on August 26, the government investigation task force on the concert accident had found that two cables were used to hold the screen up mid-air but one of them snapped.

One of the screws used in conjunction with the other cable was found to be broken, causing a 500-kilogram video screen to fall and injuring two dancers, including Mo Lee, who was critically injured.

After the July 28 accident at the Hong Kong Coliseum, the government stopped renters of public show venues under the Leisure and Cultural Services Department from setting up overhead objects.

But Yeung is worried that the performing arts sector may not be able to ban all large overhead objects in the long run.

"We would ask the renters to review if overhead stage effects are safe enough," he said. "We are not banning all these devices, but we would suggest the renters discuss with us if they are really using the overhead objects."

He added that the government will continue to discuss with the sector about enhancing stage safety.

Yeung said the speculation of concert tickets may become a criminal offense as authorities are studying introducing a new law.

Libby Cheung Wai-ting, a committee member of the Hong Kong Theatre Arts Practitioners Union, said the government should set up different regulations for different public show venues. She also said that the government has clearer guidelines in theaters than in other public show venues.

"The government is mainly regulating the static overhead stage effects, but they should also review those that can move around," she said.

"We would say building stages nowadays are like back to the 1970s, as we would be asked to scale down our stage designs and all large mechanical devices are banned," she said. "The surveyors from the LSCD are also very careful now."

Meanwhile, singer Endy Chow Kwok-yin held a three-day concert from Friday to yesterday that had no overhead stage designs at the Hong Kong Coliseum. Male band Grasshopper is also confirmed to be staging a concert in late October, with tickets on presale now.