It Didn't Have to Happen

This tragic event was likely allowed to happen because of a budget decision, not because of a war on Christmas. A less combustible tree may have cost 2%-3% more when compared to using fewer fire retardant materials in the building of this outdoor decorative prop. You can not eliminate risk exposure from vandals, the mentally ill, the chemically altered, or people determined on causing destruction to property. Those forces are similar in nature to a hurricane or thunderstorm. You can calculate the probability of the event based on location, timing, the environment, etc; but you can not avoid being in the path if it is heading your way. Once you know the landscape, it is up to the producer to present an affordable plan to lower the risk. Finally, it is up to the host company to properly fund that safety plan. This fire may have been prevented if the producer and/or host company had put a higher value on safety. It's lucky that no one was hurt.

You can't spend your way out of harms way nor do we want a police state. Hire the right producer then listen to them.

#1: Accept that you need a senior level producer involved from the concept stage until the time when the assets go into storage or the dumpster. Nothing is as simple as "it's just a tree" when you are working in heavily trafficked public space.

#2: Have the safety plan as an anchor part of the process and not something that gets dumped at the end of a show binder.

#3: Stop trying to shave a few percent off of the budget in order to maximize profits. Consider expanded safety protocols as a core cost just like other traditional types of insurance.

The FOX Christmas Tree was never a living tree. It was a metal frame covered in synthetic materials and electric lights according to public reports. An experience that put public safety as a priority should not have been so easily ignited. Anything can burn given enough heat, time, and accelerant but the online videos make me suspect that budget shortcuts were taken by the property owner or producer.

Doing it the right way would not have been expensive. I work in that neighborhood and my company manages Christmas installations. (We have a large holiday prop in Manhattan now - staffed 24/7.) It appears that the FOX prop tree may have included a large amount of highly flammable plastics. Here are a few things we do when managing a basic "experience" site.

#1 We have fire extinguishers within reach even when we have very small 1.5 gallon generators. We have properly rated fire extinguishers where-ever we have power. One key to stopping a fire is to get to it immediately.

#2 Our greeters (or safety officers) know how to quickly cut off the power if the electric shutoff systems fail.

#3 Our greeters make eye contact, smile, and engage with the public as they pass through our space. This is often enough to make someone move on to another location if they have mischief on their mind. Trouble makers prefer "soft" sites.

#4 We would only allow flame resistant material with a heat release rate of 100 kW using a 20 kW ignition source. That is a standard used for indoor Christmas trees in New York. The FOX Tree would likely still be standing even if someone hit it with a molotov cocktail had that been the material standard used. Any accelerant fuel would have quickly burned off. Public safety would have been increased.

This fire is what can happen when companies want to build an experience for the cheapest amount possible. I work hard to present competitive bids for new projects. I treat our client's money as if it were my own. I also put safety ahead of everything else. I recently had a successful project with a Fortune 50 company. I probably lost them as a client because I talked so much about safety. The creative director didn't seem to appreciate my repeated comments of "now let's talk about how to do that safety."

Some of the biggest things that I can offer my clients is reliability, access, and safety. Those three pillars of my business are all intertwined. One reason why I have unique access to people, places, and opportunities is because those gate keepers trust me to put safety first. That trust took decades to build. It can vanish in an instant. I'll never risk blowing that for 2%-3%. For that reason, I am OK with losing one Fortune 50 client while protecting my reputation.

Let's do something big together in 2022. At a minimum; let's jump on a Zoom and discuss it.