It may seem too early to be thinking about the summer, but now is the perfect time to be planning how to make your festival stand out. Whatever the size of your festival, there are plenty of ways to create an exciting atmosphere and keep the crowd’s energy up. And the more everyone enjoys it, the more likely it is they’ll come back next year as well as pass the word on that your festival is one of the best.
Adding the Wow Factor with live special effects
Whatever the theme of your festival, there will always be a way of livening things up, both on and off the stage. Whether you’re going for flashes and sparks or more long-lasting and chilled ways of delighting the crowd, we’ve got something to help you stand out. Here are the different ways we can help you give your festival the Wow Factor.
Make it flaming brilliant
Flame effects are massively effective but, for safety’s sake, need a lot of space. They’re familiar sights at major sporting events and stadium concerts as they can project plumes of fire up to 15 metres high. When grouped together and programmed to fire in sequence, they make quite an impact!
When used at music festivals, on stage flame effects can really punctuate a performance and add thrills, especially when the sun goes down. They can be programmed to be set off whenever you want them, and they’ll always be in sync with the music. The Magic FX Flameblazer is a great on-stage flame effect – if you have a row of them, you can program them to put on a show by themselves. Alternatively, the Flame Bar can create a small wall of flames which looks spectacular and is safe enough to be placed as little as 1-2 metres from the performer.
When Enter Shikari played at Download Festival, we installed 5-Finger flame effects on stage alongside Galaxis L-Flames that were used to great effect to punctuate certain moments in their performance.
The brightest spark
An alternative special effect that has a fraction of the heat of flames is the Sparkular. Designed with safety in mind, the Sparkular produces jets of sparks up to 10m tall, but is a lot cooler than the flame jet. For this reason, the Sparkular is also referred to as a “cold spark machine”. The lower temperature means that performers can be closer to the effect when it goes off, making it visually more exciting.
The Sparkular is often used at concerts, such as the JJ Lin concert we provided effects for in Paris. However, it’s also popular for walk ons – when a performer is announced, it’s great to get them to walk through an avenue of Sparkulars and really adds to the hype.
Cooling water
Water can create amazing special effects and its presence will help your festival goers feel lovely and cool. There are a number of water features available depending on the theme and location of your festival. If you’re in a park with a lake, you can create dynamic fountains, programming the jets to give a great display in time to the music, and even fitting them with coloured lights if you want to keep them going into the night. For Longleat Safari Park’s Festival of Light, we created a colourful fountain and projection installation in the lake – working alongside a group of sea lions and a hippo! – which visitors were hugely impressed by.
Another effective way of wowing festival goers is with a digital rain curtain. A curtain of falling water provides a screen onto which you can project whatever you want – your logo, the bands or acts playing at your festival, images, advertisements etc. Perfect as a stage backdrop, as a central standalone point, or placed at the entrance.
Making your festival smoking hot
It doesn’t matter if your festival is music, comedy, literature, food, sports, cars, crafts or gardening, the likelihood is that you’ll have a main stage with talks, demonstrations and entertainment. In which case, hiring a smoke machine will add a Wow Factor when you’re introducing your special guests and performers. (It’s doubly effective when you team it up with a Sparkular.) Whether you want smoke jets, low hanging fog or a combination of both, theatrical smoke is an enduring and much loved FX for good reason.
Want us to help with your Festival’s special effects?
At Ent FX, we have nearly 30 years’ experience creating live special effects for festivals, concerts, stage shows and sporting events. We have a team of specialists who will install and programme the effects, or if you have your own qualified staff, you can dry hire our equipment. Talk to us about all the different ways in which we can help you bring the wow factor to your festival and make it one to remember!
