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Labor Day weekend, Ellensburg, Washington: Jim
Cammaert of The Fireworks Factory and Ken Julian
of Entertainment Fireworks had a problem. ESPN
would be filming the Extreme Bull riding competition
at the Ellensburg Rodeo, and they need some
Extreme Pyrotechnics to match. The problem was
that the event site really did not lend itself
to easy setup and they had very short time windows.
The solution was Firelinx.
The show would be in three sections. The first
section would be the grand entrance of the bull
riders. Second, the competition itself and the
firing of “high rides” – when
the rider made his 8 seconds and did a good
job, Jim would fire some mines to highlight
the performance. The final event would be the
awards ceremony.
The bull-riding event would be in the evening
just after the regular rodeo competition. Timing,
however, would be critical. By the time the
tractors had finished grooming the field, they
might have no more than 15 minutes to set up
the initial shots. Then it would all have to
be removed in just minutes so that the competition
itself could start. The firing position was
right next to the bull pens, and in previous
years it proved impractical to run cables all
the way around the stadium, so placement of
the effects was severely limited and the need
to place the pyro quickly and remove it even
more quickly meant short runs. In addition,
there are the bulls. In previous years they
had left one cable run and field module in the
arena for the high rides, and sure enough last
year a bull locked onto the bright orange case
and stomped the field module. So for the second
section of the show, the high rides, placement
was critical.
The finale of the show would be
the awards ceremony, and Jim and Ken would have
only 60 seconds from the time the last bull
left the arena until the awards ceremony began.
The
solution was relatively simple, once you get
rid of the wires. All of the pyrotechnics were
pre-assembled onto plywood plates with a Dragonfly
32-cue Firing Module. For the first section,
eight plates were run out and dropped at positions
all around the stadium including one position
on the far side of the stadium, on the other
side of the fence from the bulls and right in
front of the audience for the high rides.
Only
a few wire runs were necessary out to fire trenches
placed in the field. Setup required only minutes,
and while most of the product had been continuity
tested early, a final test showed a couple of
problems that were easily corrected. After the
introduction, the crew quickly retrieved the
plates and remaining wiring, and the event was
ready to begin.
The
high rides were performed in manual mode with
just a pull of the trigger necessary to fire
the mine and automatically increment to the
next in the sequence. So Jim was able to concentrate
on the performance, not the firing system. Jim
even added a few pieces of new product just
before the show, and skipped around the sequence
list when he wanted to fire something special.
Finally, the last bull left the stadium and
all 8 positions were run back out and placed
for the awards ceremony. Setup was accomplished
with about 15 seconds to spare. 100% of the
product fired on cue.
Minutes
later, the systems were packed up and on their
way to the next show. Ken Julian, who had been
skeptical of using such a new technology on
such an important show, shook my hand and said,
“You really made a believer out of me.”
As we pulled away from the stadium, I could
still see Jim and Ken pointing to interesting
areas of the stadium (on top of 60 foot light
stands!) where they could set up next year.
Oooh boy.
David Russell
