poi standards and safety.

Increasingly as time goes by I am becoming more and more worried about the standard of some fire performing products on the market and even non fire products, it is mainly at festivals I see these items being sold but some websites too.
My main concern with the fire products is safety where as the concern with other non fire products would be the quality and likeliness of them surviving any amount of time.

Speaking about poi, at festivals they generally seem to be overpriced for the quality of the product, fire poi especially and if you add in to the equation that they might be harmful to users and others then it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.
The things I’m talking about are small (in my opinion) inadequate clips that could either come off or break, normal link chain (nothing wrong with it but I would think it would be cheaper than ball chain, although don’t hold me to that), cheap handles, extremely flimsy heads sometimes without Kevlar (by which I mean with some other cheap wick that is unsuitable for fire spinning e.g gives off fumes after being put out, that really stinks nasty) and all of this for the same price as you would expect to pay for a quality pair.

Non fire props:
Ok so tying a bit of string to a loop of material and sewing to a bean bag and incasing it in material is fine for a set of poi but is it fine for £18? Would it really cost anywhere near that to produce them or are the people who make them just trying to make money?
Or buying one of these and selling them as a pair for £10, that’s insane and probably one of the most extreme cases I’ve seen.

It seems as though the majority of people selling these items are just out for a “quick buck” and it makes me angry to think there might be someone who doesn’t know the going rate for poi and buys one of these products, or that people could be hurt or more probably just disappointed because their new toy has broken.

I was going to write a whole page of things but as I wrote this i more and more couldn’t think of what to say and the fuel of my rant ran out and I feel slightly calmer now, but I know if I start thinking about it again or go to a festival sometime soon then I’ll probably go off on one again.

So here’s my question (yes a rant and a question all in one thread):
Are my worries valid? Or am I just getting caught up in it all and it isn’t really a problem (except in the case of breakable clips to hold a head on that aren’t fire proof and come flying off sending a fireball into space…or people) but instead my standards are high? ubbrollsmile

Thanks.

p.s in no way am I saying that HOPs products are bad because they are really good smile

p.p.s I seem to remember a thread about having standards in poi equipment which would be good but impossible to police, or perhaps educating people in how important the safety aspect of fire equipment is, therefore (hopefully) they would naturally make anything to a standard that is both fair in price and safe…

you just lost the game!!!!!! !!!!!

knowledge is power, power corupts, study hard, become evil.

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