Great
Britain
2019
In August, we finished off our competitions for the year in the UK at Belvoir Castle for MLE’s Firework Champions. This was the first year we were competing in this event and the show we put together for FWC was a little different to our normal Pyromusical competitions as this one had been designed and executed by Scott Machin instead of Mark Kelsall. (who designs everything)
Scott has seen plenty of firework competitions over the last ten years but has never been given the chance to design one himself so when Mark asked him, he jumped at the chance. He couldn’t believe it!
"In August, we finished off our competitions for the year in the UK at Belvoir Castle"
The Setup
"After a few long weekends in our fusing facility, the show was prepped and ready to go"
He had put plenty of time and thought into the design with some different twists on the normal designs and sequences that he has seen in the past. He also designed the show using FireOne’s Scriptmaker which doesn’t use visual / simulation software like most other modern design platforms do, which was a challenge for him personally but after a few hours practice with two laptops running, one with Scriptmaker and the other with multiple supplier spreadsheets and YouTube videos of the product he managed to piece the show design together.
After a few long weekends in our fusing facility the show was prepped and ready to go, the crew were selected, and hire vans booked in, unfortunately when the day came to set the show up the weather had other ideas and unfortunately, the event was postponed until the 31st of August. This was a hard pill to swallow but the safety of the crowd and everyone involved was paramount.
"Safe to say, after a nervous wait, we were finally told that we had won 1st place prize!"
The 31st then came around and we were back onsite for round two, Scott and the 5 other crew worked tirelessly to get the show on the ground again and were done and tested by 5pm. The site was 100mtrs wide with 9 front positions, 3 cake, slice, and shell positions with a total of 33 modules and just over 1100 cues for the 10-minute musical.
After what seemed like an age, we were ready to fire, nerves were high but once the show started firing, they soon disappeared, the show fired perfectly and the gold crossette finale was a huge hit, even with the other competitors. The other two teams fired their shows afterwards followed by MLE’s closing show while the votes were counted, so Scott and the crew made their way round to the production tent and awaited the results. Safe to say, after a nervous wait, we were finally told that we had won 1st place prize and Scott and the crew were over the moon, and quite rightly so. His first competition show designed and executed and a trophy to boot! A huge achievement.
The Show
