I have received several emails this morning from readers wondering why the lights went out during last night’s edition of RAW from Oklahoma City, OK. Mike Ousley, employee of the Ford Center (the venue for RAW), sent the following explanation to PWInsider.com so please credit them when using this explanation.
Mike Ousley & PWInsider.com reporting:
I just wanted to give you a little bit of info about what happened at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City.
I have worked in the Ford Center since it opened in 2002 and they have heat sensors that trigger the fire alarms when it gets above a certain temperature in the building.
Well, the “shore” power is hooked into the fire alarm so when it is activated, it cuts the shore power. Don’t ask me why but it is, I guess that way if there is a fire it stops the show (and turns out unnecessary lights).
I guess the pyro was way hotter than they expected and it set the fire alarms off and that’s why the stage lights and ring lights went out.
The TV power and production truck is on a different “filtered” power so there isn’t noise in the transmission. It's on a different leg than everything else. I hope this makes sense about what happened and why the lights and stuff were off.
