Temporary demountable structures have a wide range of applications in civil engineering. A large part of them is used to realize entertainment structures; their structural safety gains much more importance due to the people that can be involved in the collapse. The latest collapses of those particular structures in USA and in Europe brought the attention of the society on the study of their safety. The structure under study is an entertainment structure that collapsed skidding on the stage left before the event had started. A back analysis is developed and produces a flowchart that points out the possible causes that led the structure to the collapse, such as for example: the failure of the floor which is not able to bear the weight or the human errors in the structural design and during the erection of the structure.
By means of analyses on a Finite Element Model (FEM) therefore the failure sequence of this particular structure is shown and forensic investigation concerning the whole phase of the construction phase is performed, starting from the design one, through the assembling and ending with the rigging phase.