Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Renn Fayre 2013 Fireworks

May 4th was the annual Renn Fayre fireworks show that I do at Reed College as part of the end of the year party, going strong for six years now! As usual, the show was done through Wolverine West Fireworks, who always do a great job. The basic setup was the same as last year, with five firing positions across 200', mostly 1.4G cakes in a mix of 500g and 200g, a few 1.3G cakes in the center, and around 100 1.75" shells and mines.

We've been rained on a couple times doing this show in the past (it being spring in Portland) but this year we had sunny clear skies and temperatures in the mid 70s to mid 80s, which was perfect. The only issue was high winds early in the afternoon, which actually took down half a tree next to the field during setup. Luckily the wind died down by showtime and we had just enough of a breeze to clear the smoke nicely during the show.





This year the theme of Renn Fayre was "New World" which gave me an excuse to go back to my favorite musical genre for fireworks, post rock. Due to their slightly futuristic and trippy sound, I went with songs from the band If These Trees Could Talk and used the following songs:

From Roots to Needles (1:11-3:33)
The Sun is in the North (0:27-2:41)
Barren Lands of the Modern Dinosaur (2:09-5:22)
Aleutian Clouds (0:30-2:35)
Malabar Front (3:01-5:51)

The show went great overall, with only a couple minor timing issues of items running a bit short or long. We had a good variety of product and everything performed well. The only thing I'd like to work on more for next year was the finale. I didn't have quite as much product available, as well as fewer big-breaking cakes and shells, so it didn't quite match the intensity of last year. The timing of the end was just about perfect last year and didn't end quite as cleanly this year, but in a way it worked with how I let the music play out and fade a little longer.

Anyway, here's the video! (be sure to check at the video settings are at least at 480, it seems to be defaulting to lower quality)