Renn Fayre Fireworks 2015

I don't have a different way to introduce this post when it's pretty similar to the last few, but another great Renn Fayre fireworks show is done! This was year #8 and I learned of both the existence of a Renn Fayre Czar handbook, and the fact that I am in it. So I guess that makes my show an Official Reed Institution!

As usual we shot from five positions with 1.75" shells and mines and 200g and 500g cakes, though this year no 1.3G cakes were used. The biggest change from last year was the weather, unlike last year it was absolutely perfect! Warm but not too hot, ground totally dry, and a nice gentle breeze during the show to clear the smoke.

The theme for 2015 was "Miami Boom Boom" and unlike most years, I decided to actually try to choose music that fit the theme. My original plan was to use all Cuban music, which I know nothing about, slowing down the rest of the show design significantly. I ended up just listening to random Cuban/salsa mixes on youtube and when I finally found a song I really liked and thought would fit well, I looked up the artist and found out he was Puerto Rican! I hand waved that away by saying there are a good number of Puerto Ricans in Miami even if the largest population in the US by far is in NY. At that point I was running short on time and gave up trying to stick strictly to the theme, so I ended up with two NY-based Americans of Puerto Rican descent, two songs from a New Orleans Jazz band, and one song from an actual Cuban! The songs used were:

Galactic - Hey Na Na
Tito Puente - Salsa y Sabor
Galactic - Karate
Mario Bauza - Ifa
Eddie Palmieri - Oyelo Que Te Conviene

The show looked great overall and I'm pretty happy with how the choreography turned out. The pace of the product matched the music pretty well, the shell and mine hits happened in the right places, most stuff started and stopped when it was supposed to, and the product looked good. Standout items that were new to this show were Deviant, Flash, Boneyard, Imperial Wizard, Patriotism, and Raging Ninja. As with last year there were a few points where I put more 200g cakes in than were needed and things got a little pukey, but overall everything looked good. Next year I want to try a little harder to create some more distinctive sections with unique effects, but that partially depends on product availability, which is limited by the timing of the show and the fact that I'm organizing it from CA.

I'm very happy with how the finale turned out, even if it didn't go perfectly to plan. The finale last year worked well and I designed this year in a similar way, but added even more big breaking cakes to go along with the mix of 200g, fans, mines, and tailed items. The last song ends with a big crescendo then a few horn blasts and the goal was to have all the cakes end when the body of the song did, allowing for 5-10 seconds of dead sky before the volley of 40 shells (last year had only 20) but as usual, 1.4G cakes tend to run longer than you expect. As a result, there was no actual dead sky between the last cakes and the shell volley, but all the cakes did end before the shells broke so it still looked great with no stragglers.

Other than some design tweaks, the other main goal for next year is a real video camera! Until then here is what I've got:

 

Until next year!

Renn Fayre Fireworks 2014

Time for the annual Renn Fayre fireworks at Reed College! This is the seventh year I've done the show now, which makes me feel a little old, but I'm glad I can call it a fairly solid tradition at this point. Setup was the same as previous years, with e-fire, five positions, mostly 1.4G cakes, around 100 1.75" 1.4G shells and mines, and three 1.3G cakes. The big change this year was the weather, with light to moderate rain for around 7 of the 11 hours we were at the site. We covered everything with plastic sheets, which created rather disconcerting puddles of water suspended between the cakes. I was pleasantly surprised during the show when nearly everything fired with no issues, especially given the high failure rate we had as a result of heavy rain during setup in 2009.

The music this year was all from a band I've been listening to a lot lately (and who are fantastic live by the way), And So I Watch You From Afar. The name might sound a little emo, but true to my usual music choices, they are a post-rock/math-rock band that plays very energetic and upbeat music that gets pretty heavy at times, though I avoided most of their heavier stuff. I did some sloppy editing to shorten some tracks, but the songs I used were Set Guitars to Kill, A Little Bit of Solidarity Goes a Long Way, 7 Billion People All Alive at Once, BEAUTIFULUNIVERSEMASTERCHAMPION, and a little bit of Eunoia crossing into Big Thinks Do Remarkable. I pick the music as much for myself as for the audience (I have to listen to it many times while scripting the show after all) but I was happy with it and it seemed pretty well-received.

The show itself was a bit smokier than usual due to the moisture in the air and limited wind, but I was very happy with it overall. Timing wasn't super tight, but things largely ended when they were supposed to, there was very little dark sky, the product firing generally matched the pace of the music as intended, and most of the product looked great. I ended up having more product to use than I originally expected and added in pairs of 200g cakes in a number of places for added intensity, as well as using three 500g in places where I might have used two previously. I think it worked out overall, but with 200g made some sections look a bit more sky-pukey than I might have liked. I considered adding another three minute song to the show, but felt like things would have been stretched a little too thin that way. Ideally I'd have another 100-200 feet to spread out across the field and create more separation in the sky, but we have to work with the space available.


The standout cake for me was probably World Class Honey Badger, but some United Pyro 200g I hadn't used before impressed me as well, notably Crossfire, High Stakes, Meow, and Zombie Clown. On the 500g side I added a number of big breaking cakes like Midnight Sunburn, Galaxy Burster, Muy Caliente, and Shoot the Moon. Others standouts were Eye of the Storm, Gimmie Shimmy, Just Light It, Unforgettable, and The Big Guns. UP Beyond Reality seemed weaker than usual which was disappointing, but the mines in WW Thug seemed better than I remembered and looked great.

The finale is always a key part of the show, and I felt like that part went great overall. I felt like the previous year looked pretty weak, so this year I used almost twice as much product in the last 30 seconds of the show, as well as focusing on big breaking cakes and fanned cakes to cover multiple heights and maximize saturation. The cakes were all supposed to end two or three seconds before the final shell volley of 20 UP Hard & Heavy. Some inevitably went long and ended a few seconds after the shells but it worked with the music and looked pretty nice. One unruly UP Good Fella ran another few shots after everything else ended, but was kind of funny looking so out of place, so I was actually pretty happy with it.

And I almost forgot, the show made the local news! Huge thanks to the Wolverine crew that did most of the actual work the day of the show, as well as two other Reedies who contacted me about helping and did a great job. 

Apologies for the poor video quality, I'm still using the 640x480 video mode on my old point and shoot camera. Additionally, it was raining during the show, so not only did water get on the lens, my hand trying to block the rain is visible at several points of the show. The music is hard to hear at points and I tried to add in the original audio track, but Windows Movie Maker isn't precise enough to match it up perfectly with the music in the video file. I might buy a proper video camera and tripod for next year... Anyway, it still look decent enough, so enjoy!

[OK, the video embedding is being difficult, so just go directly to the youtube page: Renn Fayre Fireworks 2014]

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)

Fireworks Buying Guide

Fireworks are a great way to celebrate, but how do you make sure you are getting the most for your money? Here I will offer some general suggestions for picking good items to maximize your fun. First of all, check your state and local laws to avoid any trouble. Next, pay attention to the general safety rules and know how your fireworks work and how to use each type safely. This guide may seem a little broad but that is because their are thousands of products out there depending on where you are shopping, so recommending specific items is not very helpful. If you do have the chance to plan your shopping trip in advance, you can find videos of many items on youtube if you search the items name and brand, but the best resource in the US by far is the Pyro Universe forums and video gallery.

There are dozens and dozens of brands out there depending on what part of the country you are in, with varying quality. Most "exclusive" brands are made by somebody else and they just put their own label on it, a process known as rewrapping. Sometimes you can even find the original wrapper underneath if you peel back the packaging. Every brand has good stuff and bad stuff, but I've got some general opinions on some of the bigger brands. TNT products are mostly crap, they survive by monopolizing markets and selling through exclusive stands because they don't look good against most competition. Black Cat is living off their brand name is mostly weak and overpriced with a few exceptions (their fountains, bottle rockets and firecrackers are generally very good), Phantom has good stuff but is also overpriced. Avoid single brand stands/stores if possible, the best option is independent stands/stores that have more flexible pricing and product variety. Quality brands include Brothers, Winda, Pyro King, Dominator, World Class, Big Fireworks, Pyro Predator, Hales, Red Rhino, Beihai, United Pyro, Forward, etc.

Don't trust most sellers. While there are certainly exceptions, they often don't know any more about the products than you do and if you ask what something does they will just read you the label. The better brands actually have pretty good descriptions on the labels these days, so see what sounds exciting and if it says "Colorful bursts of display of happiness and joy" or some something similar, it's probably an old generic item and should be skipped. Don't fall for "buy one get one free" or similar gimmicks, they just double the price and tell you one of them is free. Stop to actually figure out the price per item and compare it to your other options.

Cakes/Multishots/Repeaters - These are your basic multi-shot aerial fireworks, divided into "200g" and "500g" categories depending on how much pyrotechnic composition is in them. Quality 200g will give you the best value for your money, but if you want the biggest effects, look for 9-12 shot 500g cakes that include a finale in the item description (printed on one side of the label of most products these days). 500g cakes in general will give you the most effect variety and the most impressive show if you want to fill the sky. I generally advise not buying the large 9 shot "3 inch" cakes, they container smaller shells in extra packaging and while some are very good, the cost per shot doesn't really work out in your favor. Keep in mind that the more shots an item has, the smaller each individual shot will be due to the composition limits. Look for a variety of items, including cakes that shoot in angles or fans instead of just straight up. Don't just buy something because it has a flashy label, fireworks are priced half on actual cost and half on shelf appeal, regardless of actual performance.

Shells/"mortars" - Skip the generic 6-packs, they are cheap but the performance usually reflects that. Go for 12-24 shot packages and avoid any shell with more than two breaks. Just like everything else, there are composition limits and more breaks in each shot just means smaller breaks. Canister shells will typically be louder and more impressive than ball shells, but this isn't an absolute rule.

Fountains - Some fountains are designed to look like aerials, so check what you are buying and don't spend too much on something that doesn't do what you are expecting. Stay away from 500g fountains unless you know they are particularly good, they rarely go higher and usually just last a long time and cost a lot more. Feel the top of a fountain for how many tubes it has in it and it will give you some idea of how long it will last. The better brands will also have decent descriptions on them. Fountains look a lot better when elevated 3-5' off the ground so you see the sparks fall longer before they hit the ground.

Rockets - Brand name bottle rockets actually do tend to perform a lot better than the cheaper alternatives, Black Cat is actually quite good here. Decide if you want whistling or not, stay away from the cheapest generic looking ones and there isn't much to go wrong with. Larger rockets with actual colors and effects are usually either not very good, or very expensive. It's hard to tell the difference without knowing specific products, so I'd say buy some cheapies if you want, but don't spend too much on larger rockets if you don't want to risk being disappointed.

Firecrackers - Like bottle rockets, it's worth getting a good brand here, they will usually be louder and have a significantly lower dud rate. Not much else to say.

Roman candles - I'm going to be Mr. Safety here and remind you that fireworks SHOULD NOT be held in the hand, and neither should other fireworks. Avoid the cheapest generic stuff because it'll just be boring red and green with weak and inconsistent shots, as well as being more likely to explode in your hand if you do end up holding it. Look for stuff that at least appears to be a real brand and read the effect descriptions. Stay away from those 100 shot jumbo candles and similar items, they pretty much all suck.

Sparklers - Sparklers cause a very significant percentage of all fireworks injuries each year, though they are admittedly usually very minor in nature. Look for wood stick sparklers instead of metal ones, they are less likely to burn you due to grabbing a hot wire once they have burned out. If you get Morning Glory sparklers (the ones with the multicolor tissue paper around them) be sure to hold them at a distance and point them away from you, they send sparks a lot further.

Novelties - Smoke balls, tanks, all that other fun stuff. There are a few good items in this category and Brothers Pyrotechnics in particular makes great novelties, but most of this stuff is generic crap with high profit margins and poor performance. They are fun to play with, but keep your expectations low.

Assortments - Skip most assortment backs if you want good performance. They will have a variety of items in there, but most of it will be very low quality generics. Fun to play with, but not very good for putting on a show if that is your goal. They usually contain mostly fountains and other ground items, with a couple low quality cakes and a pack of generic shells. You are better off buying items individually if you want higher quality.

Fireworks Safety

Fireworks Safety

When used properly fireworks can be very safe. When used improperly, fireworks can be very dangerous, causing injury, property damage, or death. Safe use ensures everyone has fun and doesn't provide more ammunition in arguments to further restrict or ban fireworks. Nearly all fireworks accidents can be avoided through correct use.

[Note: Kids and Fireworks - It is possible for children to safely use fireworks, provided they have been properly trained and are carefully supervised by a responsible and experienced adult.]

[Note: Professional Fireworks - Never attempt to light professional/Class B/1.3G fireworks without proper training and professional supervision, construction and fusing can be very different from consumer fireworks and must be fired with different methods.]

Before Lighting:

Purchase fireworks only from legal, reputable dealers - Only purchase from those legally approved to sell fireworks in your area. Fireworks that lack labels and safety warnings are not legal to sell and may be unsafe to use. Don't purchase or light fireworks that appear to be in poor condition (bad fuses, loose/crushed tubes, visible water damage, etc), they may not function properly or safely.

Know what the firework does - Different fireworks need to be set up differently and may require different safety precautions. For example, you don't want to light what appears to be a fountain, only to discover it has aerial breaks once it tips over and shoots at you. Follow all warnings and directions on the label.

Maintain safety distances - Spectators must remain a safe distance away from fireworks. NFPA has a standard of 70' per inch of tube diameter, PGI uses 100' per inch. Fireworks should be used only in open areas away from buildings, trees, or anything potentially flammable.

Have water available - A hose, bucket, or water fire extinguisher should be available to put out any fires that may occur.

When Lighting:

Wear eye protection - Eye injuries are among the most common and easily avoided fireworks injuries. Anyone lighting fireworks or near fireworks should wear ANSI-approved safety glasses.

Firework stability - Fireworks should be stable on a hard, flat surface when lit to avoid tipping. Any cake without a wide footprint must be braced on at least two sides to prevent tipping towards spectators. Shells must be launched from tubes or racks in good condition with stable bases. The weight distribution of rockets make them easy to tip towards the ground and must be launched from something stable enough to keep them pointed skywards. Fountains typically don't need bracing, but it doesn't hurt.

Use only safe materials - Fireworks should never be put in metal, glass, PVC, or anything else that could produce dangerous fragments. [There is an exception here for steel mortars used by professionals, but there is no reason for anyone else to use metal.]

Reach and light - Never put your body over fireworks while lighting, stand just within reach of fuse and be ready to move away quickly. Matches and lighters are not very reliable and encourage getting too close and cupping the flame, torches provide reliable ignition and additional reach. Light fuse and get away.

Keep other fireworks away - Any fireworks not being lit should be kept a safe distance away (ideally in a wooden "ready box") to prevent accidental ignition from stray sparks.

Never hold or throw lit fireworks - Fireworks should only be ignited on the ground or in an appropriate holder or launcher. A quick fuse or dropped firework could case serious injury. Roman candles can explode and should only be used in some type of holder. Sparklers are perhaps the one exception, but must be held from the very end away from the body and NEVER given to small children, who often hold them too close or touch the hot wire afterwards, causing burns.

After Lighting:

Check the area - Sweep for any burning embers, unfired fireworks, or duds. Duds should be soaked in water to destroy. Use special caution when checking spent aerial cakes and mortar tubes (occasionally these may contain an unfired shell). Never put any part of your body over the tube unless you are sure it is clear.

Proper disposal - Ensure no fireworks are still burning, smoking, or smoldering before picking them up. Any of these should be thoroughly doused with water before putting in the trash. If disposing of spent fireworks by burning, keep a safe distance away in case of live fireworks or duds.

Additional Safety Info and Videos:

http://www.pyrouniverse.com/safety.htm
http://www.pyrouniverse.com/show/consumer/howto.htm
http://www.fireworksafety.com/safety_video.html

Renn Fayre 2012 Fireworks

April 28th was the annual Renn Fayre fireworks show at Reed College, making 2012 the fifth year I've done the show (video link at bottom of post). It's all pretty straightforward at this point, so no need for a lengthy post about it. Layout and product were pretty much the same as previous years, with five positions across 200 feet and mostly 1.4G items with a few 1.3G cakes and shells sprinkled throughout the show.

The biggest difference this year was that I now live in Irvine, CA instead of Seattle, making it a bit more difficult to coordinate things from a distance. Additionally, due to moving expenses and other factors, I had very little of my own product to contribute to the show. Usually I add 6+ cases, this time I was limited to some 1.75" shells and wheels. The show was put together somewhat last minute because I had other things going on and didn't have a clear idea of the music I wanted to the show, which led to a bit of procrastination.

The music I ended up choosing was largely just "fun" music with no real unifying theme or genre, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to have a bit more variety than previous years. Soundtrack in order:

Bastion Soundtrack - From Wharf to Wilds
United States of Electronica - Open Your Eyes
Cee Lo - Bright Lights Bigger City
The Presidents of the USA - Love Everybody
For a Minor Reflection - Dansi Dans
Afghan Whigs - Somethin' Hot

Setup went very smoothly, with a large crew of Wolverine West folks as well as several members of NPA. We were prepared for some rain showers, but luckily the weather was perfect and we didn't get a drop this year. As an added bonus, it wasn't quite as cold at night, which I'm sure the crowd appreciated.

I've had some wheels stashed for several years that I've wanted to work into a show, and finally did it this year, but it won't happen again! As I should have expected, no matter what you do to try and make sure they spin freely, they won't do so reliably once lit, so only one of three really spun properly. Lesson learned, next time I'll probably go back to fountains.

The rest of the show went pretty smoothly, the only issues were the usual problems of cakes running longer (CE Rustler) or shorter (WW Dahlias and Bouquets) than planned. Luckily a couple of moments of unintentional dark sky ended up working fairly well with the music, so I don't think they looked too bad. Standout products this year were Just Light It (UP), Pure Intensity (WC), Fighting Rooster (WC), Enough Said (FOA), Thug (WW), and of course the 1.3G cakes, all of which looked fantastic.

I've gotten annoyed with inconsistent cake timing leading to finales that end with a few stray breaks, so this year I changed things a bit. I did the usual scripting where they were supposed to all end at the same time, but then added a five second buffer followed by a 1.3G 600s Peacock and then another five seconds later a volley of thirty 1.75" and twenty 2" shells all on the same cue. This allowed for the cakes to finish whenever they decided to while using the 1.3G cake to fill the gap and then have all the shells break at the same time for a final punch to the show. The 1.4G cakes tended to go over by even more than I expected, but still finished in time for the final shell volley, so it looked great and ended strong. I'll certainly be doing something similar in future years, hopefully with even more shells on the last cue!

Anyway, that is pretty much it, so here is the video

Renn Fayre 2011 Fireworks

May 7th was my fourth annual Renn Fayre Fireworks show, part of the end of the year celebration at Reed College, where I graduated in 2008. [Video at bottom of post if you are impatient!]

As usual, we set up on the rugby field with five firing positions across 200'. There was no shortage of product, with 117 500g cakes, 69 200g cakes, 110 1.75" shells and mines, and two large 1.3G fan cakes. For added safety, we also set up a silt fence across the whole line to prevent any tipped cakes from firing towards the audience.

The big question this year was weather, with a forecast of showers and temperatures in the mid 40's to low 50's. We ended up getting showers on and off from around 1pm to 6pm, leading to occasional scrambles to cover product as a new shower began, then uncovering things to get back to work when it stopped. The start and stop setup was a bit annoying, but luckily we had lots of cardboard and plastic sheeting to keep things relatively dry.





The most significant change I made to the show this year was the music. In the past I've used post-rock (Explosions in the Sky in 2008, Sigur Ros in 2009, Exxasens in 2010) and at my wife's urging, I tried something different this year. Two songs were by Portland locals MarchFourth Marching Band, one by New Orleans jazz/funk band Galactic, and one song by the funk masters of Funkadelic. MarchFourth has actually played at Reed during Renn Fayre several times and are great fun, so I was hoping to bring back a lot of good memories by using them, and the horns are great for syncing with shells and mines. The crowd seemed to really enjoy the music and I had a lot of fun working with the songs, so everyone was happy!

Everyone on the crew did a great job and despite the weather and relatively large number of cues, we were basically done by 6:30pm. It was certainly a nice change from 2009, when I was running around at 9pm trying to wire up the last fountains after giving up on wiring some shells I had planned to include in the finale.

First Song - Space Hole by MarchFourth

The first song of the show is probably MarchFouth's most recognizable, and has a nice lead in. One of the five cakes that were all cued to go a the start was mis-fused and fired the last volley right away, but the opening still looked pretty good. One of the two Runaway Trains that fired next went much faster than the other, but the big problem came on the next cue when the music kept playing but the firing system stopped working for some reason. With my heart racing, I ran over to the firing system to see what was going on, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Andy (who was running the system) stopped it after another minute or so, restarted the whole thing, and picked up on the next cue in the script. Fortunately the audience didn't get too worked up about it and it only took a few minutes to get things moving again, but it was a scary moment, especially after an equipment failure screwed up my St Louis show last fall. After that bump in the road, the rest of the show went very well, with surprisingly few cakes failing due to moisture. One highlight of this section of the show was using five of the old WW Swimming Pearls, which looked great and fit the music very well.


Second Song - Boe Money by Galactic

I used a lot of Iron Revenger shells in pairs of V's in this song, which looked great with the tails on them. Some of the UP cakes in this section looked especially nice, such as The Big Guns and Bad Attitude. Two GB LAPD cakes were also for this song and had very large symmetrical breaks. Five BP Home on the Range made a nice end of the song.

Third Song - Freestyle for Miles by MarchFourth

I went a little overboard with three Winda Deadly Bomber at the start of this song when two would have been fine, but the color and glitter of the cake still looked fantastic. UP Pow Bam followed, and every time I use it I am impressed with the size and symmetry of the breaks. A front of whistling mines was included here when I realized I should include some whistle because the crowd likes it, and mines are a way to keep it short (rather than using annoying Saturn Missile Batteries). The song also had all my z-cakes (FOA Chain Reaction and WW Kaleidoscope Z), which had some spectacular color. The end of this song was my gold section, a short nod to the official theme of Renn Fayre this year (Gold Rush). There were some green and RWB breaks in there too and I can't figure out where they came from because they don't match any of the cakes I used, they may have been accidental inserts from the factory in a WW 3" Brocade Willows.

Fourth and final song - Super Stupid by Funkadelic

A classic song with some great guitar, I figured it would be perfect for a finale and a good change from the horn-heavy songs of the rest of the show. I started this song with UP Blown Away, a great little five shot crossette cake, which was followed by two Winda Deadly Bomber, one of which didn't fire. My goal for the finale this year was more of a steady build than the sudden explosion I've done before, I think I mostly accomplished that. I included two very nice 1.3G fake cakes for some extra power, though one didn't fire and the other inevitably went faster than expected while many of the 1.4G cakes went longer! I thought the finale still looked quite good despite this, with a nice build, good sky coverage, and lots of color variety without too much generic sky puke.

Despite the hiccup early in the show, everything else went about as well as I could hope for. The product looked great overall, the times where something didn't fire were few and not too noticeable, and the timing was much better than last year. I had a great time and hope to do it again next year!

Video here

Big thanks to Rod and Andy at Wolverine West, Harold, JT, and everyone else that helped set up, shoot, and take down the show! And thanks to Jeremy at Reed for coordinating from the school end.

++++++++++++

More Renn Fayre Fireworks shows

Pyros + poop jokes =

Spent some time helping at the Wolverine magazines the last two days, also started pulling stuff for the 2011 Renn Fayre fireworks. Should hopefully have some things worth posting before too long, I know the blog has bee pretty quiet lately!

Northwest Pyrotechnics Association now accepting membership applications!

For the last few months myself and some other local PyroU guys have been working to create a few fireworks club in the Northwest to allow permitted and insured shoots several times a year. We have done a fair bit of the paperwork and are now accepting membership applications to get enough money on the bank to purchase insurance for the club. We still have a couple things to go before we get off the ground, but hopefully we'll have our first official shoot within a month or two!

I'm acting President (which still seems a bit funny to me) with Al, Chris, Harold, and another Chris also putting in a lot of effort. So visit the website and sign up so we can start lighting some fuses! NPA Website

Fireworks stores in Bangkok

My brother is traveling around Southeast Asia and sent me these pictures, so I figured I'd share them here. This is what he said about it: "I ran into some fireworks stands in Bangkok out of the blue; mortars, sparklers, rockets, candles, all sorts of things but the prices didn't seem good even by American standards."

Sumner Bridge Lighting 11-26-10

Every year the small town of Sumner, WA has a bridge lighting celebration the day after Thanksgiving to kick off the Christmas season, which includes a small fireworks show. This was the third year I worked on the show, I was also there in 2007 and 2008 (unfortunately I can't link to them as they were posted on my old blog that isn't around anymore). It is a small show, but it's fun and a quick way to get some pyro in the off season!


The show is five minutes and almost all 1.4G because of the small (and rather unique) site. We fire from two mirrored positions, one closer to the bridge where most of the crowd is, and one on the other side of the local library a few hundred feet away. The one element that wasn't mirrored was a 1.3G cake on the library side where we have a little more space. The rest of the show included quite a few 200g cakes (typically shot in multiples of three), 500g cakes shot in pairs, a few Thunder King type cakes, and a couple dozen 1.75" shells, including a few small salute shells.

Left - Taping 200g cakes together for stability and ematching in series.


Right - The position closer to the bridge. On the left are the shell racks, the cakes are inside a ring of fencing as a safety barrier.

The weather forecast said 100% chance of rain pretty much constantly, but we got lucky and only had some moderate rain on and off. With a show this size we didn't have to get going until noon and were practically done by 2:30pm, which was a nice luxury. The only issue we had was a faulty rail that showed continuity on cues that weren't even connected and was switched out for a different one.

The show was scheduled for 5pm, though we expected it to actually happen a little bit later so it would be darker. The event organizers, however, wanted to stick right to the schedule because they had a busy road closed for the show, so I was still walking back to my video position when it started. As a result, it wasn't as dark as it would ideally be and the first minute of my video is terrible because I was trying to record with one hand while at the same time getting out and putting on my eye and ear protection (I was only about half the distance from the product I wanted to be for the video).


Left - One of the positions after the show.

Other than firing before it was fully dark, the show looked great and just about everything went as it should. There were two cakes where the ematch didn't ignite the visco and a few shells that had their ematch leaders get blasted by lift from a neighboring shell, but other than those minor issues everything shot as planned. The finale looked great with some 500g cakes, a bunch of 200g and some salute cakes, as well as the 1.3G cake on my side.

With a show this size and a fairly large crew, we were done with cleanup in about an hour and a half. You certainly take a chance on the weather shooting this time of year, but there is something to be said for not having to wait until 10pm for dark!

Video: (Direct link 105MB .wmv)

What hard core pyros look like

Shooting in the rain for three hours and still smiling at the end...

St Louis Group Show

Months ago I got an invitation to design and shoot the group 1.4G show at the 2010 PyroU St Louis Shoot. For those not familiar with the event, it is an annual fireworks event organized by Pyro Universe members and sponsored by the Missouri Pyrotechnics Association. The event also raised money for P.A.W. Stoppers, which helps support police K-9 units.

[Note: This is a long post, video is posted at the bottom if you want to skip the boring stuff.]

I'll post more about the event as whole soon, but in the interest of getting this up and sent around quickly, I'll just post about the group show for now.

Anyway, I was first invited to do the show back in March as a result of previous shows I've posted on PyroU, primarily my Renn Fayre Fireworks shows. The way the show works is that fireworks wholesalers donate product to this show (that I choose from their inventory) and then I put together a show however I want for the rest of the PyroU members and the public that shows up. The group show is the final (and largest) 1.4G (all fireworks available to consumers without a license) show of the night, so being invited to do it was a big honor for me. For the last few months I pored over lists from Hales, Red Rhino, Spirit of 76, and Liberty, huge thanks to all of them for their donations! Individual PyroU members also provided a few items, so thanks to them as well! While working out product I selected music and as I had a better idea of what fireworks I had to work with I began scripting the show.

(Right - E-matching cakes, there was a lot of this to do!)

Rod from Wolverine West generously offered to provide the firing system for the show, and then offered to come with me to help out! His help was absolutely essential and the show wouldn't have happened without him. We arrived the night before the event officially started and I tried to recruit a few people at the bar where we met up to help set up the show.

We got to the site at 9am on Friday the 24th and began taking inventory of the fireworks as they arrived. I was schedule to shoot my show on Saturday, so the goal this day was to cue and ematch everything, then the next day we would just have to get it in the field and plug it in. This meant that not only did each item have to be labeled with the rail and cue numbers (I brought pre-made stickers, which greatly sped up that process), but we had to remove the fuse, punch a larger hole in the tubes, then insert and tape in an ematch (electrical igniter for non-pyros) into each item. My show consisted of 519 cues, so this was a lot of work. Further complicating things, in order to have more control over the show, around 200 of those cues were from multi-shot cakes that I broke apart into individuals tubes, so I had to take them apart and know what they did shot-for-shot to avoid mixing up my effects.

(Left - Mounting individual tubes from broken apart cakes into racks.)

I had a great crew of volunteers helping me, most of whom I had never met until that day or the night before. I'm not going to try and name everyone because I'll forget people, but everyone did a great job. We had to pack up at 7pm so that the shows for the night could start, by the end of our setup time we had every item cued and ematched except for a single case of cakes to be broken apart.

That night we had lots of great product demos, a surprise 1.3G show, and the Blind Pyro competition (sort of like Iron Chef with fireworks). I will write more about this in a separate post...

We arrived the next morning and finished up breaking cakes apart and prepping tubes, then loaded racks with shells and tubes and attached the individual tubes to open-faced racks (picture above). At this point (around noon) I went out to figure out where I would be setting up, which turned out to be my first mistake. I should have done this first thing in the morning as much of the space had already been claimed by other guys setting up their shows and when we ran our cable to the space that was available, we discovered it wasn't long enough! We got the cable issue worked out, but it cost us some time and I ended up being set back a little further than I would have liked with some large trees limiting how much horizontal space I had to one side.

(Right - Rod connects firing modules at one of the nine positions.)

Once the location issues were worked out we marked each of the nine positions and brought all the product out to the field. The setup ended up being only 250ft across rather than the originally intended 300ft because we were limited on one side by the trees and I didn't want to move too far from the crowd on the other side. In retrospect I should have expanded further to that side anyway, ideally I would have established my setup area sooner and used at least 350ft.

I temporarily lost nearly all my helpers to the fireworks raffle, but had pretty much everything in position and plugged in by around 6pm. From there we did a continuity test to confirm that every item is plugged in correctly. On any show there will be mistakes, but out of 519 cues, we only had around three bad ones, an impressive job for any show. With mistakes fixed we sat back to watch the other shows and wait until it was my turn.

After a few very nice 1.4G shows it was finally my turn. The opening went perfectly and while a couple items ran faster than I was expecting, it was going pretty well until about two and half minutes in. As the next big musical cue came, rather than four 500g cakes and ten 1.75" shells, there was only one cake and four shells! As the show went on, it became clear that items were only firing from the two far right positions and not the other seven. We were wondering what was going on and thinking that the cable connecting the modules may have been damaged because there were several small fires from earlier shows. There wasn't any point in stopping it, so we just let it run through the whole script and soundtrack with only about 20% of the fireworks there were supposed to be going off. This meant that at times there were only one or two items going when there should have been four or more, or at other times there was black sky because a different positions was supposed to be firing at that time.

I was predictably distraught seeing months of planning and two full days of setup fall apart in front of a large crowd. Luckily the 1.4G finale was all ready to go as soon as my show ended, so I figured it would be a good distraction from my own show. This year the finale was all crackle and it did the job quite well, filling the sky with so much crackle it appear to be boiling sparks. During the 1.3G shows that followed, Rod and I discussed what could have gone wrong. When the last 1.3G show was delayed due to technical errors, Rod wanted to go back out to the field and try to figure out what was wrong. After a bit of experimenting, we discovered that module 5 had failed, preventing the next 15 modules from receiving signals. Because modules 1-4 had fired and 5 wasn't working, we plugged directly into module 6 and firing a single cue as a test. When that worked we figured we were back on track, so we set the firing panel to run the rest of the script from the internal memory, meaning it had the right firing cues but it no longer had the music.

At this point I was just happy that we were going to be able to get everything in the sky, even if it wasn't all at the right time or to the music. To connect to module 6 we were about 30ft from it, so once everything started firing again we were right under much of it. From there everything ran as it was supposed to and I was happy to have debris raining on me because it meant the show was working. Being right under it on one end meant I didn't have a great view, but I could at least tell that things were going when they were supposed to. The finale, which I expected to go long because of the large number of cakes used, even ended right on cue, which was a nice surprise.

Any pyro that has worked with efire knows that sometimes things like this happen, so the PyroU audience was just glad to see we got it up eventually too and a few guys said it still looked pretty good. The general public probably just thought the first time was just a small and poorly done show and the second time was a totally different show. After it was over and we went to pick up the equipment and check for any remaining live product we found only four or five cues that failed to fire, which is lower than I expected for a show of this size. If that module hadn't failed, it would have been almost perfect!

Video

I'll save a more detailed critique of the show for later. For now, the video can be found here, thanks to PyroU member WildWilli. The first 2:28 goes as planned, then you can see a large portion of the show suddenly go dark. The rest of the music plays out with the "abbreviated" show and the mini-finale and crackle finale are worth seeing starting at 8:40. The second time around for my show starts at 10:26 and is a little more exciting, though it is shot to random music the DJ put on.

Renn Fayre Fireworks

Renn Fayre Fireworks

This post is intended as a central location to link all my Renn Fayre Fireworks show posts together to bring my google search ranking back up and make it easy for somebody to find reports, pictures, and videos of all the Renn Fayre shows I've done at Reed College.

(p.s. I know the formatting sucks, but blogger isn't very good at formatting images with text and I'm too lazy to fix it...)

Renn Fayre 2015 Fireworks

Renn Fayre 2014 Fireworks

Renn Fayre 2013 Fireworks

Renn Fayre 2012 Fireworks

Renn Fayre 2011 Fireworks

Renn Fayre 2010 Fireworks

Renn Fayre 2009 Fireworks

Renn Fayre 2008 Fireworks

Renn Fayre 2010 Fireworks

[Note: This post was originally on my Vox blog, which is no longer online. This is mainly just copied and pasted without much regard for preserving links or formatting.]

I know this post is a month late, but I'm finally getting it up! Part of the delay has been getting the video, which I still don't have, but should soon. I wasn't able to edit it on my computer so it has been outsourced to a friend... [Video link at bottom of post]

Renn Fayre is the annual end of the year party at my alma mater, Reed College. The party celebrates the end of classes and is kicked up with the seniors turning in the final drafts of their year-long research project, the senior thesis. I took over the show my senior year and this is the third year that I have designed the show (Renn Fayre 2008 fireworks and Renn Fayre 2009 fireworks) and I hope to come back and do it every year as a way to give back to my school in a fun and unique way.

Left - Pulling product from the truck to be cued and ematched.



















The basics of the show were pretty similar to the last two years, setting up five positions across 200' on the rugby field and efiring to music. The big difference this year was that the show was under Homeland Fireworks rather than Wolverine West like last year. This wasn't actually that different in practice because Homeland bought 1.4G product from Wolverine as well as my contributions that came from Wolverine and my own purchases. Rod from Wolverine was actually there for the shoot because he was helping with the audio system.

Right - Laying out product and plugging in ematches.














One welcome change from last year was the weather. Rather than monsoons and lighting, we got a tiny bit of drizzle for a few minutes and nothing more. They sky looked gray and threatened rain almost all day, but thankfully it never came down.

Last year was all 1.4G product, but this year included a few large 1.3G cakes in the finale. Bruce from Homeland wanted to add some 1.3G product so it would count towards the pyro licenses for a few guys on the crew and I was happy to have it as I was a little worried about the finale having enough power. I always plan segments and effects carefully and buy my own product with those goals, then find myself scrambling a little to have enough product for a good finale. I did try to plan a little bit for that by purchasing a case each of 200g BP Wild West and BP Super Stallion as low level filler and ended up buying another case of GB New Dimension at the last minute to get more big breaks in the finale. Next year I should try and set aside some finale stuff early on before using up all my resources on the body of the show.

Two minor issues we ran into were a slight shortage of ematches and a few items not making it onto the truck. We were maybe two dozen ematches short, so I took out some of the shells and 200g filler cakes in the finale, hoping they would be the least noticeable. A few items didn't make it onto the truck, but luckily most of those were able to be filled by items where I had a full case in the truck with only half scripted, so I could move some things around. One moment towards the end of the show ended up unfilled so there was a bit of black sky, but the rest worked out well enough.












I try to use less conventional music in my shows and continued that tradition here. The last two years I used Explosions in the Sky and Sigur Ros, this year I used another post-rock band because I can't think of anything else and it seemed to fit! The theme of Renn Fayre for 2010 was "The Final Frontier" and I had recently discovered a band called Exxasens (myspace, website) that makes very cool space-inspired music. They are pretty obscure (I think it is really just one guy in Spain) but the music seemed to fit the theme very well and sounds great. For something a little different, I also used the Carl Sagan remix "Glorious Dawn". Unfortunately the audio equipment we had for this show didn't have enough power for various reasons, so it couldn't be heard very well for much of the show. This was a bummer, but there wasn't much I could do about it.
















First song: Exxasens - Spiders On The Moon

This song includes audio samples from rocket launches and the famous Apollo 13 quote as well as having some cool tempo changes and some pretty heavy moments at the end. Overall this year I wasn't trying to time things as precisely with shells (no mines this year), but tried to at least keep the cake pacing matching the music as best I could. Overall timing this year was so-so, good at some points but often a second or two behind.

This section had two American Orbiter girandolas timed to lift at the end of the countdown for a nice surprise and unique effect. I was a little worried about using girandolas and won't be doing it again, because one driver didn't ignite, sending a girandola sideways into a tree rather than up into the air, luckily I had angled them away from the crowd during setup or it could have caused a serious problem. The opening willow breaks in The Big Guns looked fantastic and the whistles in F-19 were popular, but the finale of that cake didn't happen when I wanted and was slightly different from what I'd seen before, which was a little disappointing. Later on there were issues with cakes igniting and a noticeable spot where only one of two Pyro Picasso fired. Pow Bam and Spicy Hot both had impressively large breaks and were highlights of this section.













Second song: Exxasens - Sky In Red

This song has a cool opening that I thought would be great for the z-cakes followed by some tempo variation and a dramatic end that seemed perfect for a big willow/brocade section. Kaleidoscope Z started a tiny bit late but looked awesome, followed by Fire in the Hole, which was very solid. Razzle Dazzle had very nice gold, blue and glitter, though the finale on the cake looked smaller than I remember. The big willow section following that worked almost perfectly. Winda Reach For the Sky broke huge and was complimented nicely by WW 3" Brocade Willows, as well as some smaller hard breaking cakes at a lower level. I decided to use Reach For the Sky this year to add a little color for variety and am pretty happy with how it came out, although only two of three cakes fired. The song ended with WW H2O, which looked great but started and ended a little early, so the music playing out to dark sky went on longer than intended.

















Third song: Exxasens - Signals From Outer Space (you can find the song on the myspace page)

This might be my favorite song from the show, I just love the opening pick scrape followed by the cool jittery guitars about 40sec into the song. Firehawk Cyber Fantasy didn't break as large as I was expecting but still looked pretty cool and the three BP Hot Wire right after that looked awesome and were probably my favorite item in the show. That was followed by three WC Not In My Yard, though only two fired. I think it actually looked better that way and gave time to appreciate the individual breaks, so that is a lesson I'll try and hold onto. UP PPS-8 was a lot slower than the videos I've seen but still looked pretty good and the six angled WW Blue Tie with Brocade Mine crossed nicely (I forgot the angle the ones I used last year). The finale of this song ended up looking a bit messy using several different items to try and keep the pace up, but the five BP Clipper at the end looked very nice and ended right on cue.

Fourth song: Symphony of Science - Glorious Dawn

I used this song as a change of pace and kind of a joke, most Reedies are nerdy enough that I figured they would have heard it at some point since I didn't expect many people to recognize any of the songs by Exxasens. I had a hard time choreographing this song because the verses and chorus are too short for most cakes, so it ended up looking pretty messy. Basically I just wanted the WW Flying Fish with Zoom Power to start and end the song and some UP Killer in the Mist to fire at the chorus and the rest was just filler. I opened with two Flying Fish but only one ignited, though people still seemed to enjoy it. Five 200g UP Atom Smasher was overkill, it made it hard to really notice the color change effect, which was the whole point of using them. After that only one WW Snap Crackle Boom fired and I ended up with some black sky next because I forgot to fill a gap created by some cakes not getting into the truck. Luckily both Flying Fish at the end fired and the timing worked as I had hoped, with nothing during the last line of the song so people could hear it.














Fifth song - Exxasens - Polaris

For the other songs I used almost the full track, here I just used an edited bit as a finale song because it had a nice sudden change and was very intense. Things started more or less on cue and looked awesome for the first part, I think the low level filler helped a lot. After most of the low level filler ended it was mainly just the big breaking cakes and the pace was a bit slower than I wanted. One of the 1.3G cakes was falling leaves, which looked cool but didn't make a huge impression as part of a finale. The comet cakes on the other hand looked awesome and got a big reaction from the crowd, so they helped the finale quite a bit. You never get an all cake finale to end perfectly on cue, but overall it ended well enough.

So that was the show, hopefully I'll have a video up soon. I want to follow up with some lessons learned and other things of that nature, but I'll have to save it for when I've got more time...

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Video: Direct link 119MB .wmv

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