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DYNAMITE FX: LOCKDOWN PROJECTS Warwickshire special effects and pyrotechnics company, Dynamite FX reflects on a series of historic projects in lockdown…
With an unusual wealth of government-mandated time, Dynamite FX embarked on a series of dynamic lockdown projects, including Liverpool Football Club’s long-awaited Premier League trophy lift at Anfield and two Sam Fender shows at one of the UK’s first socially distanced music venues, the Virgin Money Unity Arena at Gosforth Park, Newcastle. Dynamite FX was fast approaching what was set to be the company’s busiest year to date, with a series of touring and festival pitstops across Summer 2020. However, like the entire events industry, the Warwickshire special effects and pyrotechnics firm watched all the events, hires and sales disappear from the company calendar over a two-week period. “At the time the lockdown was being introduced, we were preparing for our first tour of the year with Sam Fender, and we were due to go into rehearsal on 17 March,” Dynamite FX Founder and Director, Joe Knight began. “We had two weeks of uncertainty and then got the news it was being postponed until September, which has now, of course, been moved again to Spring 2021.” During the early part of lockdown, the company restructured its warehouse facility. “We began R&D on some new special effects that we
hope to have built and ready for our return in 2021,” Knight reported. “As part of the #LightItBlue campaign, we were involved with a Thank You NHS event at one of the UK’s best event venues – Aynhoe Park, Oxfordshire – supplying laser and special effects to celebrate the wonderful and tireless work of the brilliant NHS, caregivers and key workers.” In June, Dynamite FX was contracted by Liverpool Football Club and the team’s main sponsor, Standard Chartered, to create a visual spectacle for the club’s long awaited – 30 years to be exact – Premier League trophy lift at Anfield. With no fans allowed in the stadium for the event, the SFX specialist designed and produced a quarter of a tonne of personalised confetti embellished with over 100 fan tweets of congratulations, which were fired during the trophy lift. “We supplied 200 bespoke LFC-branded handheld confetti cannons for each of the football players and their families, VIPs and sponsors, to use on the pitch, dressing rooms and player hampers,” Knight recalled. “We have produced SFX for many sporting events over the years. This job was unique in the sense that there was a strategy behind what we were doing 20
