h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There is probably, still, in a lighting rig, at a secondary school in Rochdale, a cartridge fuse replaced by a bit of solder wrapped around the terminals several times. Some of the crew complained it sparked at them once or twice.

I still don't know how, during the time I was doing the lights/sound we actually avoided killing anyone!

Cheers.

Now that you mention it, I'm sure I left a similar "loaded" fuse in a theatre somewhere. If only I could remember which..

Closest I ever came to a law suit was during a Junior production. I hired some dodgy looking cartridge flash boxes and just before dress, I made the firing box live. An ominous "fftt" sounded from downstage as one of the boxes fired. If one of the performers had not heeded the instruction to stay away from the pyro, it could have been nasty. A short in the firing box was to blame. It's best not to mix kids and explosives.

... or indeed strippers. You'd be amazed how difficult it was for me to prevent a bunch of strippers going back on stage (to present the producer with some flowers) while there were 3 live pyros still on stage that hadn't gone off. Honestly, hot fallout mini-gerbs chucking sparks upwards, scantily-clad performers... you would have thought they'd have some desire to avoid a Darwin award.