RHS Hampton Court Flower Show Preview Evening 2010

RHS Hampton Court Flower Show Preview Evening 2010

Fireworks for the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show Exclusive Preview Evening 2010

The Hampton Court Flower Show is one of The Royal Horticultural Society’s flagship events and a real honour for Alchemy to be involved. The last couple of years had seen 2 different companies produce the display for this event, and without going in to too much detail both didn’t quite hit the mark with both the audience and the event organisers. In that respect it was similar to the first year we fired Leeds Castle, because our client knew how important it was to get back on track and meet their audience’s expectations: one poor show can be a singularity, but several consecutive ones can affect your audience’s perception of the overall quality of the entertainment, and even make them think twice about attending.

Add to the mix the historic nature of the venue, the sensitivity of local wildlife, and the constraints of a firing site where the wind almost inevitably blows towards the audience and you have to choose your material carefully: no big material, no drossy material. But it has to be spectacular, don’t forget. The best ever.

So, clever choreography was the order of the day, as well as designing the display with the right balance (and type) of shells to cakes and candles, so that we could fire a continuous display without any shells if strong wind forced us to pull them. In the event the wind was light and the skies were clear, too clear, in fact, as we had to wait an extra 5 minutes after the scheduled firing time in order for the West-facing audience to benefit from a darker sky and therefore a more impressive spectacle. After the last 3 summers I think we can argue that the weather being too good and delaying the start of the show was an unforeseeable problem!