After almost a year of planning, my big Renn Fayre show finally happened on Saturday May 3rd. Past years have been pretty much terrible (and those clips are some of the highlights) so the bar was set pretty low. Of course I wanted to do the best possible show regardless of what we've had in past years. With the small site, almost everything used was 1.4G, there were a few bigger 1.3G cakes I wanted to get that didn't happen because they weren't in stock. I also had ten 3" mines scripted for two points (first parts of opener and finale) that didn't get approved. The 1.3G that did get in was a few small cakes that look like 200g but have decent reports on them, I used six angled more for their nice white tails than the reports. We also had 80 1.75" 1.3G shells in the finale. The cue sheet can be found here (.pdf).
We were supposed to have the rugby field to set up starting at 11:30pm, but due to a miscommunication the field was double-booked with softball games scheduled until 4pm. Luckily we were able to shuffle things around to get that open sooner and in the mean time we e-matched all the product and marked each item with the rail and cue numbers (left).
It was pretty awesome seeing cake after cake come out of the truck, there were 80+ 500g cakes and 120+ 200g cakes, as well as the shells, strobes and candles.
(Right - Unloading product at the edge of the field)
The weather was pretty iffy for a while, things alternated between sunny with a few clouds to fully overcast with light rain. We started working around noon and it rained on and off until 3-4pm, which made me nervous for the conditions at showtime. Luckily the weather cleared up and we had no rain, perfect temperatures, and a nice wind blowing the smoke off to the side once the show started.
(Far right - A nice pile of fireworks at one of the five main positions!)
(Left - Overview of the site with most of the positions visible.)
We had a good size crew and things were pretty organized with product e-matched and cued before placing things on the field, but the large quantity of product and a few inevitable mixups meant that we were still working at 7pm when I took my leave to finally join the party myself.
(Right - Lots of wires, luckily we could place nearly everything close to the modules and only use the ematch leads, so there was very little additional wire needed.)
(Left - The center position finished.)
(Right - Shell racks with 1.4G and 1.3G shells)
200g cakes were glued to plywood, the ground was solid enough that all the 500g could just be set on the ground because they have much wider bases so there was no risk of tipping.
I didn't get a very good picture of the overall site, so here is a quick video tour of the area:
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Ok, on to the actual show. This was the first show I've put together to music. I love the band Explosions in the Sky (not just for the name) and have long felt they made great music for fireworks. The music is intense without being angry or depressing, because it is all instrumental people could invent their own meaning. Here are the songs and sections I used:
Greet Death 0:33 - 2:32, Catastrophe and the Cure 0:00 - 2:20, Fire Breath After a Coma 3:17 - 4:28, Catastrophe and the Cure 5:44 - 7:30, Have You Passed Through This Night? 3:57 - 5:02, A Song For Our Fathers 3:04 - 4:32, Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean 2:30 - 3:24, It's Natural to be Afraid 9:17 - 11:35, A Poor Man's Memory 4:24 - 5:53.
I could hear the music well where I was, but I'm not sure if people in the back could hear everything, the crowd was pretty deep and the slope of the seating area may have been an issue. In the future maybe speakers can be placed in other areas as well.
Section 1 (Each section is one song clip) - The opening was fantastic and I could tell people were excited and impressed right away. The timing worked very well with the lights going out and the strobes starting about ten seconds later. This gave everyone time to focus and build tension before things got going. The Rainbow Crunch came in at just the right time and the next group of cakes as the music picked up a few seconds later made the whole section pretty much a finale right from the start. Individual effects got a bit covered up (a theme throughout the show) but it still looked great and ended pretty much with the music.
Section 2 - I forgot to angle the Blue Tie cakes, but it wasn't really a problem. The Chosen One came in at just the right time as the music picked up. America's Celebration and Pure Seduction had huge breaks and I got the pacing to work out pretty well so things slowed down with the music and picked up again at the end. So What Are You Looking At? had fantastic colors and while a couple of them went past the music, it still worked very well.
Section 3 - One of the few slow sections of the show. Both Flying Fish With Zoom Power and Swimming Pearls were big crowd pleasers, with effects most people probably hadn't seen. Those Swimming Pearls shots really travel!
Section 4 - This section was a lot of random stuff and was pretty chaotic. The timing worked well in the first bit but most of the cakes had mixed effects so the whole thing looked pretty messy. People were surprisingly excited by the whistling effects in Screaming Meemie.
Section 5 - H2O was a perfect cake here, another of a small number of parts with only a single cake type firing so the effect could be seen very clearly. The Gimmie Shimmy cakes in the second half were great and filled the sky with gold and glitter.
Section 6 - People liked the pace and effect of the Domination z-cakes a lot, Killer Scorpion looked pretty good too. The next bit with Rumble Tumble and Tail Gator was a bit of a crackle puke and the candle effects weren't very visible with everything else going on. Storm Cadence had great mines for a 200g and the XO1 shells slowed things down a little at the end.
Section 7 - Tatt was ok but the main body of this section was One Bad Mother. This was supposed to be another slow section before things picked up for the false finale, but wasn't really all that slow. The willows on One Bad Mother were huge and the crackle really spread.
Section 8 - False finale. Five 1-2 Punch with four Night Vision started this with a ton of color and it looked great. Snap Crackle Boom with Zoot Suit was ok, but the combo of three Yin Yang and three So What Are You Looking At? added another very distinct effect to the show with the big gold to strobe mines and lots of color above. The willow false finale was huge, with 15 200g Golden Willows and three 500g Big Package. Next time I might try to avoid so many willow cakes that also have color because it covered up the willows a little more than I liked.
Section 9 - Finale! I could tell a lot of people were surprised that the show wasn't quite over, that was exactly what I was going for. The slow build of the music with three Blue Pearl with Gold Strobe cakes helped ratchet up the tension until the music finally exploded (pardon the pun). I spent a lot of time playing with the finale to make it huge but still controlled, with a few visible changes in shape and effect. A few of the effects were a little more covered than I had hoped (like the spinners in Wild West) but it was a huge finale that seemed to go forever and ended almost on cue, with only a couple stray shots.
So that was the show. I'd never done anything this large or complex before and the huge audience made it even more stressful. After the first two sections things seemed to all be going as planned and I was able to relax a little more and actually enjoy the show. It was a lot of work but I loved doing it, I'm glad I was able to do something special for my last year and college and give something back to the school.
I want to thank the Renn Fayre czars, Paul, Rod, and Bruce for all helping make this happen!
[Update: Video here (direct link)]
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