For as long as I can remember I’ve always enjoyed the fireworks at the end of the Edinburgh International Festival. For those of you who have never seen this spectacle it is a 45 minute long firework display during which over 100,000 fireworks will be launched from Edinburgh Castle to accompany the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, playing in the Ross Band Stand in Princes Street Gardens below. This year’s concert is happening on Sunday (4th September) at 9pm – the orchestra’s set list can be found here.
This year Virgin Money took up the sponsorship deal and to promote this fact they organised a behind-the-scenes tour for interested Edinburgh bloggers. Obviously I jumped at the opportunity – it’s not ever day something like this happens – even if I didn’t really know what to expect (or know much about fireworks, for that matter).
We met by the castle gates as they were checking the sound system for Arcade Fire’s castle gig and were taken up to the main entrance road to the cobbled ‘square’ of the castle (the Middle Ward) where we discovered that the public are only separated from the firepower by a fence. It was here that we met up with Keith Webb of Pyro-vision, the mastermind of the whole show. He took us round some of this years preparations, told us some of the difficulties they face and how the show has trained over the years.
With all this technology, however, they have a multitude of back-ups built in, just in case something doesn’t quite go to plan. Everything is wired up so that even if something is majorly wrong with the launching system only half of the show can be affected, and those of us watching it will have no idea that anything is wrong. They can even isolate some of the larger fireworks so they don’t fire if the weather turns (not that that would ever happen in Scotland…). This computer system allows for fireworks to be launched at a quicker rate than human fingers can push the buttons (especially useful for the passages of music which are just too fast for a person to keep up with) and also enables the end result to be more closely in time with the music. The only downside to all of this is that, unlike many displays, the music is live and so the technicians/pyromaniacs (any idea of the professional name for them?) follow a coded score throughout the concert and have to be prepared to alter the speed of the launch if the conductor has a slow moment.
Sadly our tour was cut slightly short by a member of castle staff telling us that it was closing time just as we were getting to the exciting part – the waterfall. The waterfall – a wide cascade of fireworks, strung between two sets of ramparts and looks like it is floating in the air as it spills down the north face of castle rock – is a highlight of the concert, and each year its location in the show is one of the most closely guarded secrets. Not surprisingly the specifically made centrepiece is also the most expensive part of the show. What you probably don’t know is that some of the matierals used to make it have to be sourced over seas because they are classified as ‘military spec’ in the UK and the only reason for putting it into the show originally was that it had never been done off the castle before.
Thank you Virgin Money/EIF for a most illuminating tour!
Cr