Leeds Castle 2009

Leeds Castle 2009

Leeds Castle Fireworks 2009

It’s no secret that I love working at Leeds Castle. In the past 7 years I have built up a strong working relationship with them and I’d like to think have formed some lasting friendships. Maybe that’s why, more than ever, I want them to LOVE what we do there. Just liking our shows isn’t enough anymore! We decided fairly early on that we would drop the narrated displays this year in favour of a continuous show. These seemed to work much better for their audience and momentum wasn’t lost during the narrated parts. We set about creating the soundtrack early on in the summer of 2009 around the theme of ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ to broadly encompass music from the musicals. We batted ideas around and I produced the first draft of the mix for approval. After a couple of changes and re-edits the mix was done and the show was ready for the design process.

A 30 minute continuous display certainly needs a lot of variety in colours and effects to avoid repetition! I went through our entire artillery of stock and bought in specific effects where we didn’t have anything that quite suited what I wanted to achieve. I worked closely with STL lighting to compliment the colour washes and shapes which would be projected onto the castle walls and eventually came up with a display that I was very excited about. Programmed and fired using our digital FireOne firing system, we arrived at Midday on the Friday and by 3pm on Saturday we were ready to roll. A lucky Ebay auction winner gave the countdown over the PA and the firing site erupted on cue to the opening bars of Phantom of the Opera. The show was certainly one of the most enjoyable and slickest I have ever produced and this is borne out in a quote from their Chief Exec…..

“Congratulations and thanks to all staff who worked so hard over the events weekend to contribute to one of the best weekends we have ever had for fireworks. The preparation and planning was excellent, the customer service great and so far, the feedback fabulous! And as for the fireworks – astonishing” Victoria Wallace – Chief Executive, Leeds Castle

Alchemy Fireworks useful links: Leeds Castle website