Nottingham's Game City8 is set to go off with a virtual bang

This week, guest blogger Seb Lee-Delisle has written about the brand new digital fireworks display which will light up Game City8 next week. Everyone loves fireworks displays but usually you have to stand well back while the experts light the touch paper. So I’ve created a fireworks display called PixelPyros, but this is no ordinary fireworks display. It’s a digital fireworks display controlled by you! We’re excited to be bringing it to Nottingham’s Old Market Square on 18th October for the first night of a national tour, which will also travel to Brighton, Leicester and Huddersfield. It’s completely free to attend, thanks to funding from Arts Council England, and it’s the official opening to GameCity, the brilliant festival that celebrates gaming culture.  I’ve had my sights on the Old Market Square ever since we decided to go on tour - it’s such an iconic location, and why wouldn’t we want to be at the largest city square in the country? The show works really well in these urban spaces where real fireworks just wouldn’t be an option. We’ve been working all year and we’re finally putting the finishing touches to the show. The fireworks are projected onto a 60-foot-wide screen using lasers and the brightest projectors we could get our hands on. We have lots of different themes and styles of fireworks, some that look like real fireworks and some that look more digital. New for this year is the addition of lasers. The projectors are bright, but with the addition of powerful laser light we can actually compete with the brightness of real fireworks. We’ve been working hard to figure out how to control the lasers in real time with our software, and it’s finally paying off - the results are so spectacular. I can’t wait to see it full scale as part of the show. Every single firework is launched by members of the audience - touch one of the orbs of light along the bottom of the screen, and a firework shoots out of it. The show will be running from 7.30pm onwards on Friday 18th October so I’d love to see you there - the show literally won’t be the same without you! Follow us on twitter @PixelPyros and like us on Facebook for the latest news and updates. Posted by Catherine Allen on behalf of Seb Lee-Delisle.