Has anyone used silk flame machines on stage?

John_P

Trying to add a bit of drama in venues that don't allow smoke and pyro's I was tempted to try a couple of the silk and uplight flame effects.     Hard to tell if they look naff or might be effective at the back of the stage - has anyone used them?

https://i.imgur.com/Xymh22I.jpg

mike257

A production company I used to do some work for had them in hire stock. Barely ever went out on events and our lighting guy was always upset when they did, because they absolutely do look super naff. Wouldn't recommend. 

If you want safer pyro-style effects, cold spark machines might be a better bet. 

John_P

Thanks.    I was looking at trying some cold spark machines but wary of the mess they can leave and I’m told the cheaper ones like equinox did are less reliable so it can get pricey for better models.   Have you seen some that are a reasonable?

Danny1969

We had one and called it the Ghost cos that's what it looked like. Ours was actually a bit dangerous because when you turned it off the material collapsed down to very near the still very hot halogen bulb. 

In the eighties we just made our own pyro with thunder flash powder. Put so much round the drum kit at one gig we blew the hi hat off the stage and so much smoke settled the audience couldn't even see us.