A sound engineer in his thirties, who was injured by lighting equipment while working as an independent contractor for Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival this month, has retained Los Angeles law firms The Ryan Law Group and Culver Legal to recover damages for his injuries.
In a formal complaint filed on June 6, 2022, Attorneys Andrew T. Ryan and Thanos Simoudis assert that their client sustained multiple vertebral fractures after lighting equipment rolled off the top of the stage and on top of him during the festival. The incident occurred during the first weekend of the festival, on April 18, 2022, as the sound engineer was helping to break down the set for Swedish house music group “Swedish House Mafia.”
The complaint alleges that this incident happened in part due to worker fatigue caused by 30-hour continuous shifts required by production management. Event production management refused to pay for hotels for the workers, and instead drove them back and forth from Burbank to the festival daily. Attorneys Ryan and Simoudis hope the upcoming litigation sheds more light on the abuse of frontline workers in the entertainment industry.
Since the sound engineer was working in the capacity of an independent contractor at the time, the complaint lists multiple defendants, including Coachella Music Festival, LLC, and parent company Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG).
Attorneys for the sound engineer have requested a trial by jury.