New Year's Eve Set Up Day 3

Events and commitments leading up to the display some what over took my ability to continue the blog, so I will finish it with a retrospective look back at the set up and the hours leading up to the midnight moment.

The last of the three barges has received its quota of shells and has been wired in, all the racks are now loaded and connected to the FireOne Rails, each barge contains 48 modules each capable of firing 32 cues, this allows us to fire each shell, roman candle and single shot tube individually allowing for maximum synchronisation and control over what is fired and when. In order to protect the shells and their fuses from getting wet, we cover over the tubes with thin sheets of plastic.


The team at the docks consisted of three barge crews, eight on each, in addition we had a production manager who was responsible for getting any additional equipment that was required like nails, screws and tools, they were also responsible for ensuring everyone had the correct PPE and liaising with the marine company who owned and moved the barges. In addition we had two banks men on the dock side who were responsible for loading the equipment and fireworks on to the barges. Each lunch time a team of caterers arrived to feed the crew a hot meal and provide drinks for the hard working pyrotechnicians, this ensured that everyone was well fed but also meant time was not lost in people disappearing for long lengths of time to get their own food.

The London Eye team had the unenviable task of running four outputs around the inner rim of the Eye connecting up to each of the 32 inner firing positions. The wiring plan was carefully thought through to ensure that in the event of an output being lost we would not loose an entire section of the Eye, by wiring in every other position on each output we were building in a degree of redundancy and still maintaining a complete rotation of effects around the Eye.

The London Eye team consisted of a team of ten crew, four worked on the Hub or central spindle while five worked on the inner rim of the Eye, the tenth person was acting as our central Production Manager, making sure the crew were ready and properly harnessed to work at height, they were also responsible for completing the paper work with the London Eye technical team and getting the permits to work each night, their final role was to sit in the operating booth at the base of Eye and ask the operator to move the Eye to required orientation so that our crew could work on the relevant part of the inner rim.