Oh yes, that's a situation I know well from a number of abandoned-factory productions (in collaboration with installation artists rather than theatre people though) I've been involved with. Even getting electrical power into the space can sometimes involve enormous difficulties. In one of them (in a disused turbine hall outside Brisbane) a concrete staircase with 5 steps had to be built for the audience to use, dozens of half-broken windows 20m above the ground had to be knocked out by abseilers, everything as you say had to be brought in from outside and in the end even this wasn't good enough for the health and safety people and the (two!) performances had to be by invitation only. And then there were the snakes in the railway workshops in Perth, and the 47 degree heat in the non-air-conditioned space making daytime rehearsals impossible. And then there were the stools for the audience in Berlin which all had to be screwed to the floor the day before the opening (ie. during rehearsal time). If you don't believe me ask Mr Sudden, who was there for all of these events.

You didn't mention the fish, Richard. Although I suppose they were in a sense our fault. 

The stools having to be screwed to the ground happened in a theatre, it should perhaps be said. (The audience were on the stage of said theatre, so of course not in the normal seating, and movable seating turned out not to be a goer because of fire regulations which require reliable exit paths.)