Video direct links- Part 1 (97MB) and Part 2 (107MB)

On Friday I helped Wolverine on a small show in Ephrata, WA, a town I've never been to before out in the middle of the state.

I only took one real picture, so here it is... Left to right we have Phil, Rod and Dan setting things up.

The show was for the town's 100th anniversary, in combination with a Walk For Life cancer research fundraiser. The audience was at the track while we were setting up in the baseball fields a distance away, so while it was a fairly small show, it was almost all 1.3G unlike most other shows Wolverine does for this budget range. Rod was worried about 1.4G items getting enough height, so other than four Screaming Meemie 500g cakes, everything else was 3" shells and 1.3G cakes.

The 1.3G cakes used were all new ones that hadn't been shot in the US yet, so we didn't know the exact timing on them. As a result, Rod decided to manually efire the show so that the next item could be started when the previous one ended. They wanted a longer show, so it wasn't real exciting in terms of design. Basically it was all from one position, with single 3" shells one at a time, then a 1.3G cake, then more shells, repeating and speeding up a bit at the end with a few finale chains at the end. This is obviously different from the shows Wolverine usually does, and Rod called it a "[company name not given for tact]-style show."

Setup was done by 4pm or so, but showtime wasn't until 11:20pm, so we had a LOT of time to kill. I'm glad I brought a book! The show was originally scheduled to start at 11:45pm and have the finale go at midnight to mark the very beginning of the 100th anniversary date, but we were happy it was moved up a little. This also meant that the show could be sped up a little so it would be more exciting because we didn't have to end at an exact time. The mayor was giving a speech (that we could not hear from our location) and the lights going out at the end was supposed to be the cue to start shooting, but the light guy accidentally turned them off early and we started the show in the middle of his speech! He was apparently a good sport about it and didn't mind not having to read the whole speech.

The show was enjoyable if unremarkable. It was interesting to see the wide range of performance among the 3" shells of several different brands. I don' t know which were which, but some had larger full breaks, while others didn't look much better (and some were worse) than a good 1.4G shell. The new 1.3G cakes were all very nice, especially some of the high shot count fan cakes.

I used Rod's camera to get video, so I didn't get anything on my own camera. I might eventually get a copy from him, but it could be a while...

Next up is July 4th! I'll be helping on the Hederson Bay show again, so that should be a lot of fun. I don't know what the show is like this year, but I'll be helping drop product on the 3rd and hopefully poking around Firecracker Alley a little bit while I'm there...

Sometimes you have a lot of something that just needs to get used up. In the interest of saving time, you might as well just light them all at once, right?

In this case, a 80 100 shot Thunder Kings were donated to a pyro club to burn up because of quality issues; they couldn't be sold or used in shows, so you might as well do something with them.

Click here (direct link) for the video and turn up your speakers!

This is a much bigger version of what I saw at a different club shoot, so I have some idea of how impressive it would be in person. I know I'd be wearing my earplugs!

In other news, things continue to be slow in my pyro world. I didn't work a show on NYE and don't have anything else coming up for a while. At least I can keep myself busy planning for this years Renn Fayre show. I've got the music all picked out and have done about 2/3 of the scripting. I don't have a budget yet, so I don't know if I'll be able to make my full design happen, but we'll see! I do plan on adding some items like I did last year, so I need to purchase those before too long so I can work them into the script. If things go according to plan, it'll be a hell of a show and worthy followup to the 2008 Renn Fayre fireworks.

I'm a bit behind on the news, and a bit slow in posting, so here is a bunch of stuff all at once!

'Flaming balls' attacker charged in crackdown on fireworks abuse

A 24-year-old Sydney man has been charged by police after he launched fireworks at a police car at Auburn in Sydney's west overnight.

Police say the man used a 75-centimetre long firework to fire "flaming balls" at the car as it was patrolling the suburb.

It sounds like some dumbass just shot a roman candle at a cop (which is stupid and he should certainly be charged), but this sensationalist headline just cracks me up...

Hawaii has consumer fireworks law that limit people to firecrackers and fountains, so of course people want better stuff. Being an island, it takes a bit more work to bring things in than just driving across a state line like other parts of the US. As a result, "Passengers leaving airports in Hawaii are responsible for a disproportionally high percentage of fireworks that are found illegally stowed in checked and carry-on baggage in the Western-Pacific Region, the FAA said." As a result, black market prices for aerials are crazy, where "An undercover officer purchased 25 pounds of aerials for $1,400" from a legal fireworks seller that illegally smuggled in aerial fireworks. It seems crazy that a legal operation would do something that stupid, but with the markups they get, it isn't a surprise. Even so, aerial use on the islands is widespread and the police admit they can't do much about it.

Vegas made some changes to their New Years show this year, moving the firing positions from the roofs to the ground. They promised a great show, but the reviews were mostly negative because of reduced visibility. I haven't seen any video so I don't know how it looked, but I'm sure it can't compare to the roof firing (which was canceled because a welder started a roof fire last year).

Far worse than a lame show, there were some tragic incidents as well. 59 people died in Thailand when fireworks were illegally used inside a packed club. Somebody in Florida got himself killed with fireworks, although exactly what happened isn't clear. They talk about "professional grade mortar-type fireworks" then say they were legal to buy, it it could have just been a 1.4G shell. As with most news reports, they don't know what they are talking about, so who knows what really happened? Another man learned the hard way that sparkler bombs can be dangerous.

I'm not entirely clear on the occasion, but it had something to do with the local Boys & Girls club, Shriners, and Christmas. Apparently they've been trying to make a show happen for several years and it finally got off the ground, so that is cool. The show was landed by John, another guy that works with Wolverine, who also designed the show (I think he designed the Fife show I was at last year). The usual Wolverine shows are good, but this was a nice chance to see one done a little differently. Along with the usual Wolverine 1.4G products there were also some items by Brothers, World Class, and Black Cat.

I got there an hour before the show started and it was already dark, so the work was done and I couldn't see that much, especially because the cakes were all protected by plastic bags because of the risk of rain. The worst we had while I was there was heavy mist, which wasn't bad, but could have been a problem if they weren't prepared for it. As a result, I only got a few pictures and they don't show much...

Instead of the FireOne, this show was shot by John with his nailboard, so it wasn't nearly as tightly scripted as usual. If it was raining John planned on shooting the show much faster, so this system gave things a bit more flexibility, though obviously less precision, as the cue sheet above shows.

The show itself was good and very well received by the crowd (not that it is hard to please a bunch of kids with fireworks). The opener was a big wheel that unfortunately didn't spin, but still looked pretty cool. That was followed by over a minute of fountains, which was a bit too slow for me (and the crowd, I cut most of it from the video below). Then it was pretty much craziness for the rest of the show. It was a bit of a sky-puke at times, but still looked good and had a lot of nice stuff in it. Spreading things out in a front would have looked a lot better, but there wasn't space to do it. There was also a small waterfall, which was pretty cool, I hadn't seen one in person before.

Left - I think this was the only 1.3G cake in the show, and it certainly stood out!

Direct links to video: Part 1, Part 2.

So that was that. Good times were had, and it was nice to just relax and watch the show without doing anything! I'm not sure when my next show will be, I have plans for New Years, but there is apparently a show in late January in Oregon I might try and get to.

In other news, I've been getting a few spam comments to posts in Russian, which is kind of annoying and weird. I have been pretty quick about erasing them, but that is what is going on if you see anything. I thought about just disabling comments since almost nobody comments anyway, but I'll leave it open just in case...

The weather last year was great, but November in Washington can be pretty wet, so we were prepared for rain. Every cake was wrapped in carpet protection tape, which I had read about but hadn't seen used before. The tape is wide and sticky on one side, so it is easy to wrap cakes and cover tubes, making them nearly waterproof. Because it is pretty thin plastic, you can fire right through it. Luckily it didn't rain beyond a tiny mist for a short time, but it was good to have and is a very useful trick.

The site was the same as last year, with two firing positions. One closer to the bridge and one on the other side of the library. The product used was 35+ 500g cakes, 24 200g cakes, 24 "baby B" cakes, three large 1.3G cakes, and some shells, mines and comets at each position. I liked that there were far fewer salutes this time, although there were certainly some noisy moments.

At most points in the show, the same items fired from eaach position, often pairs of 500g cakes or groups of three 200g cakes. The large 1.3G cakes were at the further position for obvious safety reasons, so during those cakes, 500g 1.4G cakes were used at the position near the bridge.

The show was limited to only 5 minutes because they didn't want to block the road for too long, but because we fired from two locations the product was split and kept the whole thing from being a sky puke. There were a couple items I particularly wanted to watch for; Pow Bam, Nine, and Swimming Pearls. I wanted to compare the break size and effects between the two nine-shot cakes to help plan my own shows. I haven't seen Pow Bam shot in a while, and last time I helped on a show where a Nine was used there were too many other things going to pick out the breaks. Swimming Pearls is the version from the new factory that didn't swim (oops, the factory screwed up!), so I wanted to see what it did.

(Far right - Continuity testing. The firing system was located between the two positions.)

(Right - Other position with bridge in the background.)

The nice thing about shooting this time of year is that it gets dark early, so showtime was 5pm! The show was very nice overall, with a few hiccups. There was some unintentional dark sky at one point (possibly from making a mistake on a cake duration) and two cakes didn't fire, one of which was the Pow Bam I was looking for, so that plan was foiled. The visco leader ignited but the first lift charge didn't go for whatever reason. I was watching at the position further from the bridge because it was a better spot to get video and I could also see the large 1.3G display cakes, though you could see the other position firing the whole time because it was in line with where I watched from. The colors in Swimming Pearls were fantastic, although it certainly didn't swim! (which is why they aren't selling on the consumer market). I might want it to fire a little faster, but I have high hopes for what it could be if the factory gets it right. I do sort of miss the nice long tails on the old version though...

Anyway, it was a good show and we were done with cleanup by 6pm, which was pretty awesome.

Direct link to video here (32MB .wmv)

Next up is a show in Lakewood on Dec 10th. I have an appointment that day so I don't think I'll make it to setup, but I'm hoping to at least get there in time to watch the show.

Have a huge fireworks show of course!

In a modern pyro version of the Nazca Lines, fireworks lit up the shape of the artificial bay created in Dubai for the Atlantis Hotel, the most lavish hotel in the world.

Video with aerial shots here, video from the ground here. Thanks to PyroU member rikkifin for posting the links.

The show was done by Grucci. I usually like to talk shit about them (overrated etc) but they put on a hell of a show here.

Oops!

It probably wasn't a good idea to shoot illegal 3" shells while drunk, but having ten pounds of pot sitting around just makes it more hilarious. The injury was just to his hand so it was enough to teach him a lesson without being life-threatening.

As usual with these shows it was mostly 1.4G with a few 1.3G items mixed in (one half of setup seen in photo on left), but this one was a bit different from the other recent Wolverine shows I've helped on. There were many more non-Wolverine items this time, such as Star Symphony, Oriental Storm (both Golden Bear), High and Mighty, Winner Take All, Just Light It, Sugar Daddy, Beyond Reality, Red White and Bluetiful, and Killer In The Mist (all United Pyro). In the interest of cleaning out odds and ends,  older versions of the Wolverine cakes Snap Crackle Boom, Falling Water Chutes, Pyro Picasso and Golden Willows were used, giving me another chance to compare the different versions. Quite a few 1.3G 1.75" shells were used in this show, as well as 2" comets, two large 1.3G cakes, and few mines.

Setup was easy as usual, with people arriving around noon and most setup done in a few hours. The only bad part of the setup was the heat! It was 90 or so, which felt even hotter standing around on a concrete tennis court for hours.

One other fun thing about this setup was the use of Wolverine's Whiplash Mines (pic on right), which we ematched into the lift so they would fire to the beat of the opening song. I can't remember them being used in any of the other Wolverine shows I've helped on, so it was kind of cool to use them. To be honest, they aren't that great as far as mines go (certainly not compared to Critical Acclaims or Cannon Assorted Mines), but they still work well as an accent item on a song.

We were basically done by 5pm or something, which left us with plenty of time to kill (as usual). The same old-guy cover band from last year was back, which got a little old by the time they started hour number three. The crappy reheated Dominoes pizza dinner of last year was replaced by tasty (but overpriced) pulled pork sandwiches, so that was a nice change.

The show itself was quite good, and I was happy to see something a bit different from the past few shows. One big difference was that it wasn't the same music I'd heard three times already, so that was a big plus! Andy designed this show and used longer songs than Rod, keeping looser timing on the cakes but using the mines, shells and comets for some well timed accents.


[The following is my comments as I watch the video, so take it as you will.] Star Symphony (part 1 0:46) had very nice bright breaks, especially the last volley with tails, though it is short and a bit pricey. Seeing the old Snap Crackle Boom (p1 2:03) I still like the new one better, but I miss the color tipped willows that were replaced with falling leaves, and I like the breaks with crackle in the old version better because they don't cover up the color as much. The new version of Thug (p1 2:27) still impresses me, although the mines could be better. Sugar Daddy (p1 2:58) had very large breaks for a 200g and a nice finale, I might have to get a few. The timing at the start of the Bruce Springsteen song (p1 3:16) looked great and I still love Gimme Shimmy(p1 4:32). After seeing it again, I like the old version of Pyro Picasso (p1 5:24) better than the new one. Just Light It (p2 1:15) looked spectacular, the colors were nice, the fans have good spread and the breaks are large for the higher shot count. Winner Take All (p2 1:34) was a little weak by comparison, which was a little disappointing since I was excited to finally see it in person. The breaks on High and Mighty (p2 3:33) were a little sloppy, but they were very large and had some nice colors, so I was definitely a fan. The slow section (p2 4:12 shot to "Bittersweet Symphony") was a nice change of pace, though I think it went a little long because several items were repeated. The old Falling Water Chutes (p2 4:59, well timed by the way) was used, which may have a little more hang time, but doesn't spread as much, I like the new version better. I'm not sure I have the right cake, but I think I'm seeing Killer In The Mist at 3:15 in part 3, the breaks are very nice whatever it is... The old version of Golden Willows (p3 3:45) looked good, they don't break as big but the willows have more glittering and hangtime. I don't usually like red white and blue cakes, but Red White and Bluetiful (p3 4:20) really impressed me with the nice colors, pretty good mines, and large breaks. I'll certainly try to get this one for myself! The finale was solid, I think Andy puts a bit more product in his finales than Rod does. Colorful Carnies (p3 5:51) are always nice in a finale and the mine to salutes was a good finishing touch.

Video: Part 1 (36MB .wmv) Part 2 (43MB .wmv) Part 3 (38MB .wmv)