Howdy from Georgia

[markcockrell]

Hey guys,

Just popping in to say "hello." I've been lurking here for a while and decided it was time to actually sign in. About 6 years ago some redneck friends from church decided we were tired of dealing with traffic and unruly crowds at our local municipal display and decided we'd just do our own show. We started by pooling our resources at the local pop-up store and using Bic lighters, but our show has grown quite a lot over the years. A couple of years ago we started purchasing consumer 1.4 products from a regional wholesaler and just this year I bought three Ignite modules and put together as scripted 26-minute show for about 150 spectators. It was sure nice being able to watch the show and not running around in a mini war zone!

I've learned a lot from the forum, and look forward to learning more. Maybe some day I'll even be able to contribute something. ;)

[topshelfpyro]

Your first E fire is the gateway drug..........lol

I'm up to 1k cues and counting for my backyard.......

[Engineer Cat]

Your first E fire is the gateway drug..........lol

I'm up to 1k cues and counting for my backyard.......

Welcome to the forum.

What topshelf says, the gateway drug. LMAOO I enjoy a hand fired show once in a while but prefer being able to watch my show like everyone else once I hit the fire button. Some people feel like it lacks excitement but I don't think so at all. I've worked on my script for hours on end, it's exciting watching it fire to the way it was scripted.

[displayfireworks1]

The affordability and the available of the Ignite system will bring more and more fireworks enthusiast into the world of electric firing. While other inexpensive import system have been around for a while they may have gone unnoticed by the average once a year retail users. Because you usually did not see the imports systems for sale at the retail level. Ignite may be changing that convincing retail locations to add the Ignite Kiosk to the showroom. What is interesting with this member out of Georgia is , he goes from a Bic Lighter to a scripted display using Ignite software. Me at his point I would have been happy just pressing buttons. He advanced pretty quick.

[markcockrell]

To be fair, there were a few intermediate steps between the cigarette lighters and the e-fire show. I'll lay it out here because it may be instructive to other newbies like myself.

2018:
Five families showed up on the 4th with whatever we happened to buy on our own, and set things off round-robin style with basic pocket lighters. No plan of any kind, no spectators outside of our immediate families. Still lots of fun.

2019:
Same five dads got together the last week of June and went to a local fireworks "super store" and pooled our resources to take advantage of the typical buy-one-get-one sales. We still had no plan and just lit things by hand with cigarette lighters for our immediate families.

2020:
Eight dads got together and went to the local Super Store to try to maximize our purchases. I took all the stuff home with me and made notes of things like number of shots, duration, and approximate height of the shots. I used that information to cobble together a "Firing Order." We laid everything out in rows and a designated "Fire Control Officer" called out shots over two-way radios as we walked down the lines setting things off. About 30 socially-distanced spectators that night.

2021:
Now were up to about 10 families contributing money and manpower to the cause. Basically the same as year 3, but bigger and better. This was the year we discovered the beauty of propane torches instead of cigarette lighters. I cobbled together some very crude mortar racks by stuffing tubes into the holes in cement blocks. We put on about a 20 minute show that night for about 75 spectators. One guy brought a karaoke speaker and played unrelated patriotic music while we set things off.

2022:
We pooled resources and came up with about $3000 to spend with a wholesaler. More fireworks than I've ever seen showed up at my doorstep in mid June and I spent the next couple of weeks taping and fusing cakes. I'd been saving the fiberglass tubes that come with consumer shell packs and fashioned several racks from them. I also bought 100 blue HDPE tubes and used those to make a few racks, including two infamous milk-crate-racks. Our dedicated Fire Control Officer who called all the shots tended to get excited when in the heat of things and often had four or five guys lighting things at once, which not only resulted in a good bit of sky puke, but sometimes got a little dangerous with too many things going at once. In an attempt to better time the show, this year I created a Power Point style slide show with each slide moving at timed intervals. All he had to do was press "Start" and then call out what he saw on his phone screen. We had about 100 spectators at that show.

2023:
We bought about $3,500 worth of product from the same wholesaler along with a 3-module Ignite firing system which provided 54 cues with clip-on igniters. I added another 150 fiberglass tubes in homemade racks, which allowed us to eliminate dangerous reloads. I had to do a good bit of taping/fusing of cakes to get everything in that few cues, but with the help of a dozen or so homemade breakout boards we got it all done. I managed to get a few cues perfectly synced with the music, but the imprecision of using clip-on igniters and the low number of cues made it more of a musical accompaniment than a pyro-musical. We had a crew of 5 guys setting everything up and somewhere between 150 and 200 spectators this year.

2024:
Already in the works!

[topshelfpyro]

To be fair, there were a few intermediate steps between the cigarette lighters and the e-fire show. I'll lay it out here because it may be instructive to other newbies like myself.

2018:
Five families showed up on the 4th with whatever we happened to buy on our own, and set things off round-robin style with basic pocket lighters. No plan of any kind, no spectators outside of our immediate families. Still lots of fun.

2019:
Same five dads got together the last week of June and went to a local fireworks "super store" and pooled our resources to take advantage of the typical buy-one-get-one sales. We still had no plan and just lit things by hand with cigarette lighters for our immediate families.

2020:
Eight dads got together and went to the local Super Store to try to maximize our purchases. I took all the stuff home with me and made notes of things like number of shots, duration, and approximate height of the shots. I used that information to cobble together a "Firing Order." We laid everything out in rows and a designated "Fire Control Officer" called out shots over two-way radios as we walked down the lines setting things off. About 30 socially-distanced spectators that night.

2021:
Now were up to about 10 families contributing money and manpower to the cause. Basically the same as year 3, but bigger and better. This was the year we discovered the beauty of propane torches instead of cigarette lighters. I cobbled together some very crude mortar racks by stuffing tubes into the holes in cement blocks. We put on about a 20 minute show that night for about 75 spectators. One guy brought a karaoke speaker and played unrelated patriotic music while we set things off.

2022:
We pooled resources and came up with about $3000 to spend with a wholesaler. More fireworks than I've ever seen showed up at my doorstep in mid June and I spent the next couple of weeks taping and fusing cakes. I'd been saving the fiberglass tubes that come with consumer shell packs and fashioned several racks from them. I also bought 100 blue HDPE tubes and used those to make a few racks, including two infamous milk-crate-racks. Our dedicated Fire Control Officer who called all the shots tended to get excited when in the heat of things and often had four or five guys lighting things at once, which not only resulted in a good bit of sky puke, but sometimes got a little dangerous with too many things going at once. In an attempt to better time the show, this year I created a Power Point style slide show with each slide moving at timed intervals. All he had to do was press "Start" and then call out what he saw on his phone screen. We had about 100 spectators at that show.

2023:
We bought about $3,500 worth of product from the same wholesaler along with a 3-module Ignite firing system which provided 54 cues with clip-on igniters. I added another 150 fiberglass tubes in homemade racks, which allowed us to eliminate dangerous reloads. I had to do a good bit of taping/fusing of cakes to get everything in that few cues, but with the help of a dozen or so homemade breakout boards we got it all done. I managed to get a few cues perfectly synced with the music, but the imprecision of using clip-on igniters and the low number of cues made it more of a musical accompaniment than a pyro-musical. We had a crew of 5 guys setting everything up and somewhere between 150 and 200 spectators this year.

2024:
Already in the works!

Well done! Dump the clip ons and change to initiators. you'll have to poke the cakes then but so much better experience with instant fire. I stand by my original statement that the first e-fire is the gateway drug! I'm not real familiar with the ignite system but I think you can get up to 108 cues with it before you have to make the jump to a more expandable system. I use FireTEK but cobra is very popular and also mongoose I believe are the top 3 choices when you're ready to make the jump eventually.

What county are you in? I'm in Forsyth.

[markcockrell]

I'm right on the Cobb/Cherokee line.

[topshelfpyro]

I'm right on the Cobb/Cherokee line.

Nice, kinda neighbors lol

[PyroManiacs]

Welcome to the pyro neighborhood!