Water Fools in performance, with elaborate pyrotechnics.

In some ways, outdoor performances require us to spend more time building the theatrical systems than we do actually installing the production.

Less than a week out from the beginning of the install for Water Fools, and we’re poised for all the pieces to come together. The performers and technicians will get here this weekend. The equipment has already arrived in Chicago, a bit earlier than planned. Two 40-foot-long sea containers were trucked from Ilotopie's headquarters in the south of France to Port Fos du-Mer, where they were put on board a cargo liner bound for the United States. Nine days later, they arrived in New York City, where they were transferred to a train headed for Chicago. Now in a Chicago train yard, they await Monday morning when the containers will be loaded on trucks and finally arrive at our staging area on the north side of Navy Pier.

The first order of the day will be installing infrastructure before we can begin our work on the show itself. Some of the pyro equipment and the engines on the watercraft work off of European voltages. Before we can even begin to test and prepare them, a variety of transformers will be installed, tested and wired to our staging area. Buoys will need to be anchored to delineate our preparation and storage area for the assembled watercraft. A large boom lift will be placed to raise the watercraft in and out of the water. Security perimeters will be installed to keep the public out of harm’s way. Only when all these things are in place will we begin to assemble the components to create the 44 watercraft that will be used in the show.