Thanks for That Mariah!

There seems to be a lot of cross fire between Mariah Carey and Dick Cark Productions for the botched performance on New Year’s Eve. However, there is one big lesson that we should take away from the night.

SAFETY!!!

If you haven’t seen the train wreck then here is a video link to it.

So clearly there was an error made, but the question is how can that happen. Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve has been around for as long as I can remember (1972). It is a staple and the go to venue for New Year’s Eve viewers. The show has by far the highest viewership for New Year’s Eve and is broadcast around the world.

If you have two teenage daughters like I do, you were probably forced to watch the show until the ball dropped at midnight. In all fairness there were several great performances that night most of them via remote simulcast from a location in Hollywood.

The biggest draw of the night was Mariah Carey’s return to the show after being crowned as the first live performance for the New Year’s Eve back in 2004. I know this because they mentioned it no fewer than one hundred times throughout the night. Indeed, Mariah’s performance was the crown jewel of the event.

So what went wrong? No safety precautions were in place or at the very least not nearly enough.

The key value we teach in our office is Safety, Safety, Safety and Safety.

Perform a Backup
Test the Backup
Verify the Backup
Come up with a backup plan in case things go wrong
Assume things will go wrong
Then proceed with caution

Clearly none of the proper testing or precautions were followed at the show. If we were Dick Clark Productions, we would have triple checked everything and had a backup plan ready. If we were Mariah Carey’s crew, we would have verified the equipment ourselves and had backup plans in place. Where was the spare earpiece? Where was the stage manager to stop the production?

It was a black eye on both organizations. I’m so glad I was able to watch the disaster first hand and use it as an example to our crew.

Kenny Rounds
Braver Technology Solutions LLC