Can basses actually fall like dominos?

An unfortunate thing happened at one of the exhibitor displays during this year’s International Society of Bassists Convention. This is the kind of horror movie episode that is sure to give both bassists and luthiers nightmares…

One of the shops exhibiting basses was using a classy kind of bass stand–wooden and elegant, something like the following:

Now, these racks are attractive, but as you can see from the photo above, they don’t provide a whole lot of stability for the instrument. In this scenario, each bass is resting in a shallow indentation, with nothing else supporting it.

Apparently (and I wasn’t there to see this, but word traveled fast across the convention floor after the incident!), one of the parents of a young bassist was putting a bass back that they were trying out. They put it back in the rack and must have gotten it off-center. As they let it go, the bass tipped over.

Now, this is bad enough on its own, but this was but one bass in a long line of basses, all in similar racks. The off-kilter bass smacked into the bass just to the side of it, knocking it over as well, thereby setting in motion the world’s most expensive set of dominos:

Can you imagine the utter shock and horror on everybody’s part: parent, shop owner, and conventioneers? Each bass clobbered the one right next to it, damaging (to greater or lesser degrees) the bass next to it, which in turn fell over, damaging the one next to it. Yikes! I still wake up dreaming about this… and I wasn’t even there to witness it!