Favourite Fireworks

[andy_s]

Line rockets - fab! and only four quid a go ish.

[gareth]

Hey, Andy, does this mean we've found another pyro-head among the BR membership? The more the merrier! There's only Kate and myself that I know of so far, so we need to bolster the numbers!!

 

I fire shows for Fantastic Fireworks, Kate fires for Dragonfire (I think that's what she said, anyway - memory like a sieve!). Who do you work with?

 

And FWIW, I have lots of favourite fireworks, but the flavour of the moment must be aqua shells - did a show with FF last year which had some in it, and they were STUNNING!

[Kate]

Yep, well remembered, gareth, I work with dragonfire sometimes, (only done the occasional handfire though, still waiting for my chance to fire a whole show!)

 

I'm finding it very hard to pick just one favourite, so here's my shortlist:

A nice big brocade shell. (Well, they are just so elegant, aren't they?)

A holyland cymbidium battery (Noisy and shiny and fun!)

Any glittery mines

Big juicy gold to silver gerbs.

 

But there are two things guaranteed to bring a smile to anyones face:

Poison spider batteries (although somone recently described them to me as "so last year "!) and

Any shell above 8" (size doesn't always matter, but.... :unsure: )

 

Maybe its just me, but I've never been very impressed by those half and half coloured shells, any thoughts? :unsure:

[Angelic]

I'm a bloke, I'm straight (!) yet I have a stange fascination with all pyros involving glitter - it must be the job!

 

I used to use pyros extensively but have yet *drool* to use fireworks on a professional level - it's something I'm looking forward to doing though!

 

Ooh, my favourite would probably be those funky little coloured smoke cartridges - the confusion you can cause with them

[Tom]

Hey, Andy, does this mean we've found another pyro-head among the BR membership? The more the merrier! There's only Kate and myself that I know of so far, so we need to bolster the numbers!!

Gareth,

Don't forget Lincoln - our resident Pyro moderator - plus there's a couple of guys from le maitre on here occasionally (sorry guys - can't remember names)

[gareth]

Hey, Andy, does this mean we've found another pyro-head among the BR membership? The more the merrier! There's only Kate and myself that I know of so far, so we need to bolster the numbers!!

Gareth,

Don't forget Lincoln - our resident Pyro moderator - plus there's a couple of guys from le maitre on here occasionally (sorry guys - can't remember names)

D'oh! Of course, I forgot Lincoln and the LeMaitre chaps.

 

Is there anyone else on the forum who'd care to own up to a fetish for standing in muddy fields making big things go bang?

[andy_s]

I'mafraid I'm a bit of a fraud - I don't really work with fireworks and pyros, I'm just really impressed by the pretty things.... I work for unicorn theatre and our current show is at the Open Air theatre in Regents park. this is when we get to play with fireworks - though as I'm no expert, we always take advice. This year, the witch has to go home to the dark regions by space rocket, and of course the director took this literally - hence the line rocket which shoots from one side of the stage to the other - about 30 metres - with maximimum noise - 106dB @ 5m, and some sparks out the back.

the best pyros I've seen/heard/felt were in Oporto for the St John's day festival - they used the bridge over the R. Douro to launch (is that the correct term?) from and we were just below one of the bridge piers. Like being in the middle of WW3! almost as loud as being in the front row for The Pirates at the freshers ball, Hull 1978.

[Pyromark]

Mascletàs!!

 

Mines

 

Bees

 

Stadium Flash Reports (Concussions)

 

Paraflares (When I can use them)

 

Aqua Shells (Kill them fish!!)

 

Most things spanish!!!

 

Oh also my friends at shellscape have some fantastic oscillating cakes that are favorite at the moment.

 

The absolute best fireworks are the single shot candles and mines connected to Pyrodigital!!

 

Mark

[Stu]

I'm a bloke, I'm straight (!) yet I have a stange fascination with all pyros involving glitter - it must be the job!

I always feel sorry for the kid who's got to sweep all the glitter out of the set/stage/orchestra pit :S

 

(Having been there)

 

I was a bit of a pyromaniac as a kid (well I mean playing fire, and boy did I play with it) but I've never seemed to have wanted to move into working with pyros on stage.

 

Still like to watch em tho!

 

Stu

[Tom]

I always feel sorry for the kid who's got to sweep all the glitter out of the set/stage/orchestra pit :S

 

I toured a show, the finale of which involved blowing about about 20kg of paper confetti into the auditorium from the back of the stage with a wind machine (well a 2m diameter petrol driven propellor actually). There used to be foot deep drifts of the stuff in the stalls and due to the air flow a fair bit went up into the grid, got stuck behind cable trunking etc.

 

Needless to say, we all swept up (actually we found leaf blowers to be most effective). The cleaners didn't half make a fuss if any was left in the amongst the seating. Meant they actually had to vacuum the auditorium properly.

 

Five years later, I'm still finding bits on return trips to theatres.

[Bryson]

I've always been a sucker for Robotics. (The simulated electrical fault things.)

 

I've always wanted to do a show in which you trigger a load of them and then lurch the truss downwards (a la Metallica, in a recentish tour.) But I've never had the justification, really...

[andy_s]

I toured a show, the finale of which involved blowing about about 20kg of paper confetti into the auditorium from the back of the stage with a wind machine

Snowshow from Hackney Empire, by any chance - I never got to see that - was it as good as everyone said?

[Tom]

The same.

Not a bad show. The finale and a couple of other moments (post show giant balls in the auditorium for one) made it quite memorable but it had some slow bits as well.

Absolute nightmare to work on though. As production manager I didn't have much to do during the actual show so used to just watch the faces of the audience to remind myself why I was putting myself thru such hell. Used to describe it as 22.5 hours of hell followed by

an hour and a half of shear joy.

[PeterT]

There's nothing better than a big bang... :D

 

We always do a pyro demonstration for the students and there is nothing better than watching them scream and jump 6 foot in the air with the shock of a medium maroon going off 10 feet away (in its bomb tank of course).

 

Offshoot of maroons:

 

Confetti Cannons

 

Lovely B)

I always feel sorry for the kid who's got to sweep all the glitter out of the set/stage/orchestra pit :S

We had a pair at the back of the stage for our end of year show last year. We still find bits of gold glitter everywhere! even though we carefully cleaned it up after each show (I've now been banned from using glitter there he he)

[Tom Baldwin]

There's nothing better than a big bang... :)

 

We always do a pyro demonstration for the students and there is nothing better than watching them scream and jump 6 foot in the air with the shock of a medium maroon going off 10 feet away (in its bomb tank of course).

I got Le Maitre in for the pyro portion of a son-et-lumiere a few years back, described to them what I wanted, and left them to provide it safely, which they did admirably.

 

One of my requests was "a row of flame projectors along the line of the crush barrier, as close as you feel is safe." I had no idea the safety distance was so small, but watching an entire crowd recoil as one body when the projectors went off was a fantastic effect (as far as I was concerned, anyway :D )