When you show up to watch a fireworks show there is a crew on site that has been setting up that show since the wee hours of the morning or in some cases this may not even be their first day on site. When you are home in your bed with visions of fireworks dancing in your heads that crew is likely STILL on site, they smell, they are covered in grit and grime, they are exhausted and they might have heat stroke or frostbite but they are smiling (usually). This career isn't for everyone, in fact, most people don't even know that fireworks CAN be a career.
Over the next few months I would like to introduce you to the people who have chosen this life.
Every Friday we will post a new question that we posed to our staff. If there are any questions you would like to see us answer please send them to us at info@archangelfireworks.com
Question #1: How long have you been shooting fireworks? How did you get into the industry?
James: For less than a year. Kinda fell ass-backwards into it….long story.
Leiah: 13 years, I had a lot of friends working in the industry and I am always interested in learning a new skill or craft so I figured I would give it a shot.
Ross: Shot my first pyro shows in 1999, then took the fireworks course to help out on Y2K, but decided it would be more fun to party that night. Didn’t help on a fireworks show until the next New Years Eve. I Was in the entertainment lighting industry for a few years and it made sense to also do pyro, seemed fun, something else to be able to provide.
Adam: 3 years. I got into the industry by some divine accident when I thought I was simply applying for a retail position in Archangel Consumer Showroom.
Candice: I have been shooting fireworks since 2006.
As for as how I got into the industry, well it was all
about timing! I never dreamed about being a pyrotechnician as child, I was
going to be a marine biologist! All that
changed when I failed physics in grade 11 and I moved to a very small
town on Vancouver Island in 2002. I realized, unlike the big city there is not
much to do there. Nothing actually! It was difficult to meet people so in order
to remedy this, on a whim, I joined the North Island Kinette Club. Anyone that
knows me truly knows that this was an act of desperation! What I found there was a great bunch of
ladies, an open bar and a reason to get out of the house every week!
A year later, we took over the Port Hardy Canada Day
celebrations from the district and I was in charge of night time entertainment.
Based on my past experience with the Canada Day celebrations in Winnipeg, a
fireworks display seems like the perfect fit and only option. Canada Day isn’t
Canada Day without fireworks! Soon I was on the phone with a local distributor
ordering the product. The following year, I was asked to help set up and fire
the show. Knowing then what I know now, I had no business on that barge that
night but those 20 minutes would change my life forever. I was hooked and in
love!
Later that year I moved back to Winnipeg and it was my
roommate at the time that noticed the course registration information on the
Archangel Fireworks sign. She brought it to my attention because of how often I
talked about that infamous night on the barge in Port Hardy. I made a call and
was enrolled a week later. The rest they say, is history!!!
Kelly: 20 years, I started by packing gummi snakes into grab
bags.
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