Well the time has arrived for us to carry out our first musical display and to be honest I am absolutely bricking it. I have done hours of prep and double/triple checked everything and am still concerned its all going to go tits up. How did you guys feel in this position as I feel I am in for a sleepless night again.
You eventually realise what will get you is nothing that you can plan for....like a freak snow storm....or a WW2 bomb being found closing the site... Hope it goes well
I know the feeling, even more so when your sat behind a firing desk about to launch a championship show! Tbh them nerves never go, even now when I press the button I pray, and I am not even religious!!!
I have a professional company in to video it with 2 ground cameras and a drone. Video will hopefully be up early next week.
Agree with mark at fwc, no matter how many shows you’ve fired, me bum still goes boo prior to pressing the fire button
That feeling is part of why we do it ,very similar to when i used to line up on the start line when i was racing motor cycles
It gets easier I get great satisfaction from letting others in the crew have the ‘honour of pressing the button’
Yep. You learn to trust your equipment and the stress comes way down. Firing system, PA system. I always do a few sound checks , right up to minutes before the show (when I'm using my pa system and not someone else's). One of my guys stands by a speaker and I do it low volume. I'm starting to understand why people have those cheesy "And now! Get ready for..." voice intros to big displays. You get a chance to hear if the audio company has you all connected up and has faded your audio in before the Pyro starts!
You're only bricking it because you care about the show. if you didn't I'd be more concerned. Cant wait to see what you can do
Best of luck with your show tonight Sean. I’m sure it’ll all be fine. Any chance of you teasing us with some set up pics?
Glad to say the display went well some little misfires that only I noticed. Just had my first phone call of complaint as some ladies dog wet herself on the carpet and they weren't fireworks they were explosives. Trying 5o be diplomatic was difficult to say the least should have the video mid week.
I think you just need to keep track of complaints over time and see what correlations that might make. For example, if you notice more complaints when using certain material (such as large salutes) maybe notch it down (use smaller salutes). Some companies go for the "as long as the client was happy" approach which may seem reasonable but if a venue always get lots of angry letters after one of your displays then you soon find you don't get invited back if another company also fires there and gets no complaints. It's one big juggling act Glad it went well and look forward to the video!!