Sydney Summer: Fireworks and The End

Part 1: Sydney Summer Introduction

Part 2: Theme Park Overviews
Part 3: The Resort Outside the Parks
Part 4: Main Street and Fantasyland
Part 5: Adventureland
Part 6: Discoveryland
Part 7: New York Harbor
Part 8: Hollywood Boulevard
Part 9: Disney Animation Studios
Part 10: Marvel City
Part 11: Star Wars Spaceport

The final and possibly shortest part of the Sydney Resort Series: the night time fireworks entertainment. This post will cover more infrastructure and less story. 

When planning both parks, I constantly kept in mind how a night time show would work and how my design choices impacted those shows, such as square footage of the viewing areas. This post presents a diagrammatic plan of the infrastructure and viewing areas for both shows. 

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For Disneyland Sydney Park, the main show occurs in front of the castle, like all others. I imagined it as a show in the Disney Dreams style, so heavily mixing fountains, projections, and fireworks to tell a complete story in multiple dimensions.

I'll start with the projection system. I have includes four long throw projectors on the rooftops of the Main Street buildings. They are spread to cover the castle from all four angles as well as the side walls on either side of the castle so that projections can move the full width of the hub. Additionally, there are smaller projectors in the small turrets in front of the large wall end turrets. These are directed at the front of these large turrets. 

Next, fountains. The system is symmetrical on either side of the castle. Each side has a large mist screen with a rear projector, hidden in the castle walls. A network of fountains in the moat wrap the front of the hub. A smaller system is in the rear ring of the hub. 

Fireworks are the next major element of the show. There are five low level firework launch platforms on the rooftops behind each side of the castle. One on each side flanks the edge of the hub for special shots. These would all fire low level pyro, like the fireworks used in Disney Dreams. Additionally, there is a major launch point on top of the ship at the rear of the park, capable of firing large shell fireworks. The circles on the map show the approximate fall out zone for each type of firework. Limited areas of Fantasyland, Adventureland, and Discoveryland are closed before each show as they are in the fall out zone, noted as crowd control lines on the map. 

The last element of the show is drones, something I know is being considered for future fireworks shows and has also been used before on small scales. The two raised building sections marked in green, which are also the access towers to the rooftop for fireworks loading, are the launch point for various drones during the show, most specifically a fleet of floating lanterns for a Tangled segment. They would strictly fly over the fireworks fall out zones and closed pathways, never over guests, and could be grounded in event of wind. 

As for the story, I believe it should be a series of scenes connected with a main story. Since it is Rapunzel's castle, the main story could be Rapunzel telling some of her favorite stories in some kind of Festival of Lights.

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Over to Hollywood Adventure, the nightly show is a new version of Fantasmic based at the Chinese Theater. It uses basically the same setup of infrastructure in a different way. 

For projections, there are two projectors on the Hollywood rooftops, aimed at the Theater, primarily to project on the front legs of the theater as well as the main pinnacle. 

The body of water in front of the theater also has a full system of fountains including an extra wide mist screen wall. Because it has to cross the solid ground of the stage, a series of pop up misters rise out of the ground to create the solid wall. Rear projectors in the theater facade are aimed at the wall. The wall and projectors are split so that either the full wall or just the sides of the stage can operate at any time. 

The fireworks include six low level launch points fanned out behind the theater and a large shell launch platform centered behind the theater. 

The main element of this show is live performance. The central stage is accessed by ramps on the side and stairs at the back. Two retractable light towers sit behind the stage and raise and lower throughout the show. To the left of the theater is the garage and entertainment building for the show. Set pieces, props, and characters roll out from here and either enter into the inner courtyard of the theater through a large door or around to the front and to the stage. Additionally, there is an access point for Mickey to appear at the top of the theater to end the show. 

The story here would be like the other incarnations of Fantasmic, but with different scenes. The basic premise would be that during a grand Hollywood premier at the theater, Mickey falls into the world of film come to life, so properties from the park are featured as well as other modern and classic Disney films. The finale would be the same, with a Malificent dragon that appears in the theater courtyard, threatening to bring down the premier. Mickey defeats her, allowing the show to go on and a big firework finale. 

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And I think that will be the end. This is a park that I have been contemplating for a year or two and I have put a lot of thought into it, but I think its time to move on to something else. 

I'm prepping a few posts to finish out the year and I think it's some really good material. 

However, I am also getting busier and busier with school work and some freelance design work, so to keep quality up, I think I need to reduce the post frequency. I know, you probably don't want that, but I need to do it just to keep up with new content. But I promise it is going to be good stuff, and back to expansions to parks you know. 

So from now on, we are going to one post a month, probably mid to late month. 

Thanks for reading!