How did it go for everyone

[displayfireworks1]

We are slowly making our way to the end of another July 4th Holiday. Pyrotalk.com reached another milestone today, today July 4th, 2017 the number of people online at one time reached a record high to date. Thank you. Please tell me how your July 4th holiday fireworks went? From reading some of the post I see we have a mix of weather issue to firing system related issues. Please post any pictures or video you have.
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https://www.colourbox.com/preview/2782484-happy-4th-of-july-illustration.jpg

[thump junkie]

we did our show at the campground Saturday night. The day started with a rain storm that dumped 3 1/2 inches of rain in 1 hour. Then somehow when I did my final check on my cobra system I bumped the channel and didn't know it. Needless to say I had to light 21 cakes by hand. Other than that it was a great. show.

[Berserker23]

Great show with the cobra only had 5 that didn't shoot must of the ematch

[liame]

most obstacles ever this year but put on what the neighbors said was the best show yet. had to deal with flooding, rain, low budget, bad shells, and a new cheap firing system. (i would attach photos but the sight wont let me :confused: )

[PYRODAN]

This was my biggest/best show so far. 1 Firewire did not fire. 2 cakes did not light, igniters did pop though. Overall pretty happy.

[pistolus]

We just did a bunch of S&S stuff Monday night... The first time in my life any fireworks were legal in New Jersey.. My Uncle lives in SE Pennsylvania and he usually gets a permit to shoot on the 4th, but not this year.. was gone on business.. but it was still a great time.. Happy Independence Day.

[Gibby99hound]

Mine went flawless cobra was great I'll have drone video soon

[Pyro Paul]

Today went great for me and my soon to be pyro granddaughters. They got to come over and let grandpa teach them the proper way to light fireworks and then I taught them a few tricks with firecrackers to keep them amused. Before they left, I gave them each a box of boobie traps to use on their mother and explained to keep them hidden and only use them once in awhile... ;) Then I spent some time with my mentor who cultivated in me a love for fireworks and taught me how to light up the sky with class B shells. Then my youngest brother showed up with his family and we lit up the sky again hand lighting some cakes and cans from my stash leftover from cases bought for the show. All in all it was a great Independence day :D

[ChrisTurner]

Fwd: https://youtu.be/xsYA1hubLJw
Here is my little show. I learned a lot, first year with cobra mods. Everything fired except one cake. The ending was 360 shells in the air as fast as I could get them up. AlReady have bigger plans for next year.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsYA1hubLJw&feature=youtu.be

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Yesterday was the longest day of my life! Battled a flooding garage, wet fireworks, a 45 min downpour with massive lightning, then darkness while still trying to wire my mortar racks and fan slice to put my show together. Half the cakes on one of two 200G boards didn't fire because the fuse got wet during the deluge. I had 5 of the 500G cakes not light. 2 because I think my helpers yanked out the initiator, and the other 3 for unknown reasons. 233 of the 236 mortars launched, but the fan slice didn't fire. No continuity showing on the Cobra R2. Just a black dot like nothing was wired to the cue at all. No idea what happened there. Then, worst of all, the script I've been working on for weeks and weeks didn't run. So I had to manually fire every cue. I tried to step through hoping the script would kick in at some point, but no joy. The good news is, the crowd loved the show. My neighbor is a photographer and he took some awesome pics. I've been trying to upload the video to You Tube, but apparently it takes 2 days to upload a video these days. Hopefully it will be up today.

[adultuser]

Yesterday was the longest day of my life! Battled a flooding garage, wet fireworks, a 45 min downpour with massive lightning, then darkness while still trying to wire my mortar racks and fan slice to put my show together. Half the cakes on one of two 200G boards didn't fire because the fuse got wet during the deluge. I had 5 of the 500G cakes not light. 2 because I think my helpers yanked out the initiator, and the other 3 for unknown reasons. 233 of the 236 mortars launched, but the fan slice didn't fire. No continuity showing on the Cobra R2. Just a black dot like nothing was wired to the cue at all. No idea what happened there. Then, worst of all, the script I've been working on for weeks and weeks didn't run. So I had to manually fire every cue. I tried to step through hoping the script would kick in at some point, but no joy. The good news is, the crowd loved the show. My neighbor is a photographer and he took some awesome pics. I've been trying to upload the video to You Tube, but apparently it takes 2 days to upload a video these days. Hopefully it will be up today.

Now Rick, notwithstanding all that, tell me you'd have rather been working.
:p:p:p

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Great show Chris!! Love the drone angles. Great job!!

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Now Rick, notwithstanding all that, tell me you'd have rather been working.
:p:p:p

I haven't lied to you yet. Don't see any reason to start now! :cool:

[papageorgio]

I did 2 shows this year and was very pleased with both. Got enough rain just before the shows to get things a little damp, but was good to go come time to shoot. Had 3 cakes that didn't go at one show and 2 cakes at the second show. Also, had to go hand light the finale on the second show, but other than that I felt good about them. The church I did the second show for said it was the best one they have ever had there, so that was great. I did a mix of the Falcon II igniters and the firewire in the first show and things seemed a little iffy with the Falcons. Went exclusively with the firewire in the second show and felt much better about it.

[cmalloy513]

My show could not have gone any better. I had it on July 3rd due to the possibility of rain on the 4th. We had perfect weather conditions and the wind was blowing just right. I had the show on my a private beach in Rhode Island. Well over 100 people showed up and everyone came up to me after the show and said it was better than most professional displays they had seen. After the show I cut all the wires to the cobra and burned all the boards of cakes right there on the beach. I had many people volunteer to help bring racks back to the truck which left me pointing fingers and not having to do much lifting afterward. Every single shell fired and only 1 cake did not fire. I had girandolas for the first time ever and those were a crowd favorite. Overall it was a huge success. Thank god I did it on the 3rd and not the 4th because there was a few showers around dusk and there were tons of amateur drunk dads lighting fireworks on the beach and everyone said it was absolutely nothing compared to my show. I had a couple girandolas left over that I shot and none of them had ever seen anything like it. One guy even yelled at me for stealing his crowd lmao.

[esgrillo]

12 mods, audiobox, est 500-600 people across several backyards, 45 hrs set-up in my garage, 10 hrs field set-up and setting up fire protection, lots of help from volunteers. Overall worked pretty good. Only a couple cues did not fire and a couple of fuse failures. Only big miss was my drone guy did not show so likely no aerial footage.

Was told best one yet. Putting together video... hopefully does it justice.

[South Carolina Mike]

This was my very first remote fired show, the Cobra worked flawlessly, everything fired, the crowd loved it and so did I! A special shout out to Dave and everyone on Pyrotalk.com, watching Dave's videos gave me the ideas I needed to make it happen!
THANK'S DAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With it being my first remote fired show I learned a lot, I see areas that need improvement and I'm already working on next years show!
Videos shot by my grandchildren so please excuse the quality!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mV9-nTyGkA

[Dion]

Shot on the 2nd,3rd and 4th in the neighborhood with the 4th being the biggest. Awesome weekend this year! I claimed best backyard show again for the third year! Lets just say my finally racks had car alarms going for two blocks! Nothing like hearing people cheering throughout the neighborhood parties afterwards!!

[Mattp]

Was a very good weekend.. usedfor the first time my 12 cue remote ststem on the 1st,3rd and 4th.. what a differemce.. already thinking about next year and how to expand.. about 100 people watching on the 1st.. all said theyve never seen anything like that in a backyard before!! I said.. this is just the beginning!!!!

[vegassalute]

Best show yet this year and I attribute it to the learnings I've gleaned from this site and other resources including club relationships. The pyro community is pretty special. I only hope my insights have helped others as much as your have helped me over the years.

[PyroJoeNEPA]

Our "show season" started early in June. My "personal show" was on June 24th. 100% fire with Cobra 5.0.2 across 16 mods. Shells up to 6". Just got a copy of the video--will see if I can edit it & post the finale soon.
As for the "4th"===we had 7 shows in 4 days & I worked 5 shows in 4 days! Tired? Yes! Sore? Yes! Need a rest? Yes! Will I do it again---hahaha --------Yes--have another half dozen shows yet this month! SMELL THE SMOKE!!!

http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=2444&stc=1

[rkmcdon]

I had, hands down, my best 4th ever. It was my first year to do an organized and fused show compared to the stop/start chaos of years passed. I'll post pics and video in a separate thread shortly. I came across this thread about a week ago after committing to make this my best year and it was tremendously helpful, though I think it may have pushed me over the edge of a cliff that has no bottom in sight

[displayfireworks1]

PyroJoe in that picture working hard for the holiday. nice
I am enjoying reading the comments , it sounds like some of you guys are advancing nicely. It nice for me to see and hear some of it.

[cherrybomb1]

That Mr turner was "simply marvelous" you definatly have the acreage do do a lot bigger shows but that was nice!

[gt95stang300]

Went pretty good with just a few miscues. Firetek system dropped a que for some reason and ofcourse it was 4 noabs :-( still havent figured out why. Learned the Cobra system works better with the antennas attached to the modules lol luckily i caught that before i started that portion. Definitely need to prep the visco on cakes before using visco connectors or just need to poke next year as i had a few that didnt light off, hopefully next year ill have more time to set up instead of just 6 hrs to set and match everything as i didnt have time to spread out the cakes like i wanted to. Now just recuperating from muscle aches and starting in on planning next years

[pistolus]

That's very good footage of the show.. These drones give us video capabilities that just weren't there a few years ago.. good job ChrisTurner.

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Nothing like hearing people cheering throughout the neighborhood parties afterwards!!

Bingo!! That right there makes all the hard work worth it for me. My 9 month old grand daughter saw her first fireworks show and loved it! Can't wait to get her out there helping me wire shows!

[Kenny East]

It went okay, first 15 cues fired like they were supposed to, 16-30 failed... Wireless system fired everything right... Just lost half of the mine/comets and fans... I will shoot them next time. Only had two close calls. A bamboozled cake blew apart, and i had some quick match land on another rack and send it up early... Otherwise it was good

[ChrisTurner]

Thanks everyone. Already planning my 4th show for next year. Lol

[FBpyro]

I thought it was going to rain for my show but luckily after noon it was all clear! show went nearly perfect had a few Excal shells that didn't go that I had to hand light but other than that every single one of my cakes fired, and this was using talon igniters! So I'm pretty happy they all worked.

[PyroDre]

i feel like I've been hit by a bus...two weeks straight of nothing but display fireworks shows.. I'm glad to be back at my normal job today to get some rest LOL!

shot a show for my biggest crowd ever over 20 thousand people, the roar of the crowd afterwards was as awesome. but no one managed to get good footage of it though

i wouldn't have it any other way


my back yard show got rained out so i let my son just light a bunch of stuff to show off to his friends

[crayzkirk]

It went pretty well. I think I need some advice on fireworks. I typically buy assortments which contain cakes and some additional mortars. The store I buy at has Pyro Predator assortments and this year I was really disappointed in the selection. Last year, I bought a Life of the Party assortment that had a good selection of cakes. Didn't have it this year so I got an American Backyarder. Very disappointing; no 500g cakes and a bunch of lackluster Dominator 200g cakes. Everything was pretty generic. I got a Circus Blast for the finale and what a waste of money. I have been buying from Hale which shows retail prices with the actual price being 50% of that. I spent $1000 and got 66% off the price. Even at that, I don't feel that I got my moneys worth.

Suggestions? I didn't see any assortments from Brothers and how do I get wholesale pricing? Even at 66% off, I was paying a lot more than I see advertised online.

HELP!

[jLk_pyro]

My holiday went pretty well. Shot two shows over the weekend. A friend of mine I met through a club paid a visit and brought some product that we shot off. I then did a show on the 3rd that went relatively good. Other than a water balloon hitting my finale rack and a 3yo hiding my wireless remote - it went just fine LOL. Can't wait for Labor Day when I can "scratch my itch" again.

[Dion]

It went pretty well. I think I need some advice on fireworks. I typically buy assortments which contain cakes and some additional mortars. The store I buy at has Pyro Predator assortments and this year I was really disappointed in the selection. Last year, I bought a Life of the Party assortment that had a good selection of cakes. Didn't have it this year so I got an American Backyarder. Very disappointing; no 500g cakes and a bunch of lackluster Dominator 200g cakes. Everything was pretty generic. I got a Circus Blast for the finale and what a waste of money. I have been buying from Hale which shows retail prices with the actual price being 50% of that. I spent $1000 and got 66% off the price. Even at that, I don't feel that I got my moneys worth.

Suggestions? I didn't see any assortments from Brothers and how do I get wholesale pricing? Even at 66% off, I was paying a lot more than I see advertised online.

HELP!
You should get involved with a club and search around on the pyro forums along with this one. There are advertisers on here that do wholesale and through the clubs you will meet wholesalers also. The more serous you get into fireworks as a true hobby the more opportunities will come along.

[MtnViewPyro]

Crayzkirk,

This was first year putting on a "show" before that I did what you did with buying assortments. This year I purchased from spirit of 76 fireworks wholesale. I spent more than $1000 but my show was 19 minutes long and just a few dark sky periods because I messed up on fusing. Not sure where you live but there are tons of options for wholesale and trust me that's the way to go. Here is my little show, first 2 minutes are not included in video.

https://youtu.be/v6JmBHf1UTk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6JmBHf1UTk&feature=youtu.be

[Rick_In_Tampa]

I spent $1000 and got 66% off the price. Even at that, I don't feel that I got my moneys worth. Suggestions? HELP!

Check out Dave's sponsors!! They all offer wholesale pricing. WF Boom offers 40% off if you buy between Jan and March (I believe). Spirit of 76 offers wholesale pricing if you're a member of PyroTalk and you spend at least $500. I'm sure there are others. Try to get in on a group buy with your friends. Pool your money so you get a bigger discount. Lots of different options out there.

There are sales reps on here from most of Dave's advertisers; WF Boom, Spirit of 76, Kellners, etc. Look them up and send them a PM. Ask what they can offer based on your budget.

Shoot me a PM if you need any further assistance. Glad to help if I can.

[MontanaMike]

Things are extremely dry in eastern Montana and a lot of counties were under burn bans and fireworks restrictions, but our county was spared -- so our show was on.

My buddy and co-pyro Keith is a volunteer fireman for our town. We started our setup at 7:30 am, and at about 11:30 a call came in for our local fire department to assist on a structures-threatened fire at Rosebud, a tiny town 10 miles east of us. So Keith took off to go fight that fire, while I continued our setup. By noon the temperature was 106 and I was taking frequent cool-off breaks. He was out on the fire for 5 1/2 hours and was exhausted when he got back. After a long nap and probably a good dose of fireworks-induced adrenaline, he was fine by showtime.

Around 3 in the afternoon, word came out that due to the firefighting effort in Rosebud and the expectation that more fire calls could come in, the local fire department was canceling the public show which is held at the fairgrounds. They do a 1.3 show, but it's all hand-fired, and they reload mortars during the show, so it's pretty labor intensive.

This is a small town, so word quickly got around that our show (which is held in two backyards) was still on, so we had quite the crowd show up. They were in the yards, along the road, and even in the cemetery which is across the street from our shoot site. I have no idea how many people we had onsite, and I've heard from a lot of folks since who watched from various driveways and backyards around the area. The only "complaint" we heard was that our music wasn't loud enough.

Things with the fireworks went well... we were much more coordinated than last year, so setup had gone much faster. We had about 85 500g cakes, 6 200g, about 150 roman candles, and 175 mortars - mostly from Pyroboom, but about 30 shots from poor man's racks. We also shot up a bunch of parachutes for "warmup" for the kids in the last hour before showtime. All fired 100% except for one roman candle, and one row of 4 mortars.... that last one was my fault, a mistake with programming. The Cobra system, as expected, performed flawlessly except our music cut out right before the finale song.... not a huge loss because the finale would have drowned it out anyway. I had meant to swap in a new set of batteries in the audiobox before showtime but in my excitement, forgot to do it. (C'mon Scott, we really need the AC adaptor for the audiobox!)

It was our first year using a large number of roman candles and I was pretty happy with the results on that. We had all of our cakes and mortars at a site about 250 feet from the crowd, but the roman candle racks were much closer, maybe 50 feet, and all in modified Pyroboom racks, so it was pretty cool when this unexpected array of candles started going up...people really liked it.

We plan to get two more modules for next year and I'm hoping to get a couple more mortar racks too, as budget allows. We had about 85% of our mortars in the finale and I've decided that no amount of finale mortars is too much!

We got a lot of good ideas from this site, Dave's videos, and of course the various guys on Youtube who taught me a bunch of things next year. Already got the wheels in motion for next year...it can't come soon enough.

[shake the cove]

Spectacular. great finish. The audio came thru great but the fireworks going off were muted. How many cues did you use/