Safety in spotlight at Victory Field

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The State Fair tragedy put a spotlight on how other organizations handle emergency situations. With opening day at Victory Field on Friday, 24-Hour News 8 looked into plans there.

Indianapolis Indians Assistant General Manager Randy Lewandowski said his organization has an extensive emergency plan that is reviewed and tweaked each year.

He said communication plays a major role in the plan.

"Not only with fans - which is most important - but internally, that we are ready and can put our plan in action. We use our PA system, also our video boards, and have our texts ready," he said.

But Lewandowski said safety plans at Victory Field could benefit from the in-depth investigations done at the State Fairgrounds after the Aug. 13 stage rigging collapse that killed seven. He said he will take a look to see what the experts uncovered and suggested in their reports.

The city of Indianapolis is already doing that.

"There are lessons to be learned from that tragedy, no question about that" said Mayor Greg Ballard.

The city's Code Enforcement Office, he said, will go through the fair investigation reports to see what can be learned and implemented if necessary.

"We thought we were pretty rigorous in our standards, to be frank with you,” he said. “If you can learn more from that, be more rigourous, it looks like some of the standards may change and get tighter as we go along … which is probably a good thing."