9 replies to this topic

[Daedalus]

The Roar on the shore display is next Thursday (20th August) between the Bournemouth and Boscombe piers and ending with a world record attempt 110,000 rockets in less than 60 seconds (twice the size of the 2006 Plymouth record). The money raised by it is going to a good cause too (Help for Heroes) so worth chipping in a contribution.

Should be a good display for anyone in the area - I'll be there if the weather is OK.

[Night Owl]

What a really bad show, look on youtube it is slated by the public as being a very poor show, I agree!

Edited by shell shooter man, 22 August 2009 - 11:36 PM.

[Mortartube]

Anyone know who fired it?

Looks to me like they had no budget to play with, in which case I understand a low amount of material can only be used. I have been in the sort of situation in the past where the client has said, we want 10 minutes of sky full, here's £1000, that's our budget.

But having siad that it wasn't particularly creative whatever the budget. Flights of rockets could have been used as it's over the sea for instance and a few large cakes or bombette candles. I was bored through it all.

[Mortartube]

Just found out it was Fantastic Fireworks. I hate to slate companies but Jon Culverhouse should hang his head in shame. That was pants.

[David]

Here is the article- Times

[phildunford]

Bit of a disaster for all concerned...

Not good for Bournemouth, FF or fireworks in general. The comments in the paper are full of old g*its complaining about pollution, waste and all the usual ill-informed rubbish - last thing we need.

Surely everyone knew that a record attempt such as this was never going to be a great public spectacle - if it was billed as such it should have been preceded by a massive fireworks display. Also £8500 seems peanuts for a public event.

[David]

Surely everyone knew that a record attempt such as this was never going to be a great public spectacle - if it was billed as such it should have been preceded by a massive fireworks display.

Good point there- It was billed as a "world record breaking attempt" so people are naturally going to expect something wonderful. Moreover "in less than 60 second" sort of implies that they are going to be firing for nearly 60 seconds (which I think was the original intention.)

Anything hyped as being "record breaking" is always going to run the risk of being disappointing. I suppose a bit like seeing Niagara Falls (the waterfall, not the firework) for the first time--- it's marvellous and all that, yet doesn't quite live up to it's "billing."

[David]

The comments in the paper are full of old g*its complaining about pollution, waste and all the usual ill-informed rubbish - last thing we need.

The "classic" anti-fireworks quote is along the lines of "they should ban them all, except for public displays" - I am, of course, against that move- and I fail to see how events like this would support that!

[Daedalus]

if it was billed as such it should have been preceded by a massive fireworks display. Also £8500 seems peanuts for a public event.

My understanding is the £8500 was just the cost of the 'record attempt' rather than the whole display. Now, I don't know Cat 4 pricing but would expect that to be a reasonable price for 110,000 rockets (13p/rocket including setup etc.) I presume there was a couple of quid left over for the display before I guess the cost has gone up somewhat after the barge caught on fire and sank. All in all a rubbish display after all the hype and seeing the video of the Plymouth event, certainly not worthy of a record attempt (and claimed record) - why not just fill a shipping container with a million rockets and detonate it ?

As a local who sees quite a few of these displays and was present at Meow on the shore I have to say the display was pretty poor - short and sparse a lot of the time. The upside was that at least they used a few ring shells and palms which is better than the Poole display 15 minutes later managed (though overall that was a much better display - even watched from Bournemouth). The Poole display the previous week though had a couple of long pauses in it - sufficiently long that there was even faint applause before they started up again. It does seem to me that whichever company(ies) is/are doing the Poole and Bournemouth displays are getting complacent on puting on a decent display - they are certainly not as good as a few years ago where they fired fireworks onto the sea which then exploded etc. seemed to have more imagination and used the environment they were operating in to good effect.

Glad to say I was home in 15 minutes, I pity people who had to sit in cars for 3 hours just to get out of town.

[David]

It does seem to me that whichever company(ies) is/are doing the Poole and Bournemouth displays are getting complacent on puting on a decent display - they are certainly not as good as a few years ago where they fired fireworks onto the sea which then exploded etc. seemed to have more imagination and used the environment they were operating in to good effect.

It is possible that they are working to a much tighter budget, also possible that the cost of fireworks has gone up significantly too, which would mean that they simply can't match what they were doing a few years ago.

That said (and I'm only going off the videos) there didn't seem much creativity to the display- it almost seemed like stuff was being sent up at random. I've been to other displays like that, too, where the fireworks were good but there didn't seem to be much of a sequence or co-ordination to the show.