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The Inside Story

KGB Skyshow 25

By Ron Foo
Clear Channel Communications Engineer

June 16, 2000 marked KGB-FM's 25th Anniversary Skyshow. It was an idea set forth by Rick Liebert, Jim Price and Ron Jacobs to have fireworks synchronized to music. It was an original that has since been copied by many others throughout the world.

KGB Skyshow #25

Skyshow planning starts months before the show. There are dozens of people that are involved with this project. KGB's promotion, production, programming and engineering departments, the Padres, and Fireworks America are all involved.

This was my 14th Skyshow. When I was first hired at KGB (my first day was a Monday), John Barcroft, Chief Engineer for KGB, asked me what I was doing that Friday. I answered "probably nothing," he asked if I would like to go to Skyshow. "Sure!" I answered, not fully realizing that I was going to be put to work on the show! John Barcroft is a seasoned Skyshow engineer as this was his 23rd Skyshow.

About a month before Skyshow, the producers, Pat Espinosa and Blair Schultze, have assembled and synchronized the audio, video, FSK sync and lighting commands tracks and the tape is given to the fireworks choreographer, Ron Dixon. Ron has done this for over 20 years and is a real pro and does amazing things with fireworks.

At about this same time we place orders with Pacific Bell for the 15 kHz stereo program loops, 1MB's, and ISDN lines for the show. We also contact San Diego Sports Communications to have them install the lines to the Press Box 25B. This is the box next to the Owner's box. This is will serve as Master Control for the entire show.

Since Skyshow is an all day event, the day actually starts the night before with engineers Mike Prasser and Miguel Rountree setting up equipment for the Dave, Shelly and Chainsaw broadcast on Friday morning. This remote is done at Qualcomm's parking lot in an area called KGB Skyshow Village.

Around 10:30 am John Barcroft and I arrived at Qualcomm Stadium to begin setting up the equipment in Box 25B. We use two video tape decks for the show. The primary deck is a Sony Digital Betacam and the backup is a Super VHS machine. Both of these machines have four audio channels. We send the Skyshow program audio channels from the stadium back to the studio using the analog 15 kHz stereo program loops. We use a Telos Zephyr Express for backup. The other two channels on the tape machines are for lighting commands and fireworks FSK timecode. Lastly, we run a video feed from Box 25B to Jumbotron for the video portion of the show.

Stadium Fireworks at the Skyshow

Skyshow often has multiple firing line locations. The firing line is where the fireworks computer is connected to and sends the firing commands to the shells. The main one is located at N2 in the parking lot by the tunnel. This year we had another location near the first base dugout. The FSK time code is sent using two paths, a main and a backup.

During the eighth inning everybody involved with Skyshow proceeds to their assigned position. We have KGB employees stationed at various places such as the lighting center, so they know when to turn out the stadium lights; the scoreboard, to give cues to the operator; Jumbotron to make sure they are receiving our video feed; and finally the PA operator when it is time to have KGB-FM air signal put over the stadium PA system.

Back at the KGB studios Lenny Gemar is our trusty board operator. Lenny also has a copy of the soundtrack in a CD player that he can vari-speed to sync up with the audio from the stadium, just in case. Kevin Douglass, Director of Engineering is back at the studios during the day to help out as our sister station Rock 105 was doing another remote from another venue at the same time!

At the end of the baseball game, the various pyrotechnics and props inside the stadium are assembled. Roll call is taken of the people at the scoreboard, PA, Jumbotron, and lighting stations. If all is ok, we roll tape and ask Fireworks America if they have good time code. Once we get the go from them, it's showtime! For the next 25 minutes, or so, we sit back and enjoy fireworks synchronized to music.

After the show it's time to bug out! Get all of the handi talkie radios back, roll up the video line from Box 25B to Jumbotron, and in general, just get everything put away. It takes about 2 hours to do this...and then time to collapse!