Cannes 2015

In August 2015 we headed over to the Festival d’art pyrotechnicque in Cannes.

Due to the heat in Cannes at this time of year this creates a challenge for our crew as they have to work through the night when its much cooler, we all love some holiday sun however, working during the day is an entirely different matter. The hosts provided on-site chefs throughout the evening so our team were well fed and watered throughout the rig.

The set up was certainly interesting and a logistical nightmare as its spread across three barges and ten small pontoons. Every position was rigged and assembled on the dock before being craned on to the pontoons. This is easier said than done as one slight gust of wind could have snagged and potentially ruined the angles of the display or even pulled out the igniter wires on the products.

Once all barges and pontoons were in position it was down to Joe and Gavin to go to each pontoon via speedboat and make sure we got an all green comms check. We are pleased to report that they suffered no sea sickness in the process. Overall the whole crew worked tirelessly during the set up and the professionalism and precision never dipped throughout the challenging conditions.

We used almost two hundred modules for the display so the whole fire file had to be split into two halves, Alpha and Beta which is two separate displays that are fired in synchronisation. As we had barges and pontoons to contend with, the traditional wiring of the firing system was impossible so we had to fire the show wirelessly and we had a total of seventeen wireless transceivers along with two Omni-Antennas to boost the signal from shore side. The show fired exactly how we had planned and it was great to see the fruits of our labour, along with the big cheers from the crowd and the horns from the ships in the harbour afterwards.

When we attended the awards ceremony afterwards, we were delighted to find out that we had won the Public Prize for the best display. This was an honour as our display are meant to be for those who watch them as much as ourselves so the team and Mark were elated.