Ramsgate Firefly Fiesta 2011

Ramsgate Firefly Fiesta 2011

On the back of one of last year’s personal display highlights – the Monster Bass Festival – came a new end of summer event organised by Ramsgate Arts: the Firefly Fiesta. Alchemy Fireworks were commissioned to design a display to be choreographed to a new composition by local musician Mark Bandola. We provided production input based on our first-hand experience of working on the beach and dealing with all the issues that go along with that: moving lots of heavy kit over expanses of sand; rigging in the wind and rain with no shelter; keeping an eye on the tide while maximising safety distances to the audience; making sure that access to the firing site is controlled as the tide goes out and more of the beach is exposed. We also had to make sure that the display lived up to expectations despite a significant reduction in budget from the previous year’s event, and we wanted to guarantee that the digital choreography to the music was as impressive as ever.
Thankfully Mark’s composition made life easy for us. To me it implied slightly broader brush strokes than the previous year which meant that we could evoke the tone of the piece without being compelled to hit every accent. It contained graceful atmospheric movements, upbeat sections, and even a reggae interlude to provide real variety over the development of the piece. As a result we were spoilt for choice when it came to selecting the fireworks for the display, and the end result was really well-received, as this comment from event organiser testifies: “Your beautiful fireworks were absolutely the highlight of the event on Saturday. We have had countless comments from everyone including the Mayor about how stunning they were.”