I’m not a huge college (or even pro for that matter) football fan, yet for the past several years I’ve found myself sitting high above the crowd at the Georgia Dome for the Peach (come Chick-Fli-A) bowl on New Years Eve. Its one of the “perks” of doing pyro in the Atlanta area. Indoor pyro is a totally different beast than a larger outdoor show. Often times the work is harder on the indoor than the outdoor show for a couple of reasons I won’t go in to but I’ve decided I rather prefer outdoor displays to indoor stuff.

Last year’s game was ok as Georgia was playing in the bowl game. This year was cool as I could sit there and yell go Tigers and it didn’t matter who had possession of the ball. Not to mention it but the sea of Orange that encircled the dome was amazing as well (both Auburn and Clemson have orange as their color). It was actually a good game as well and a packed house (I looked around the dome from my perch at the top and was unable to find more than a dozen empty seats at kickoff!). Going by the stats, Auburn deserved to win. They had possession longer, they threw for more yards and had more first downs than Clemson, but Clemson wasn’t going to give up with out a fight.

The game ended regulation play at 17 -17 and for the first time in the bowl’s 40 year history, it went in to over time. Clemson took the lead on field goal but Auburn answered back with a TD to win the game. It ended up being a rather exciting match and both teams were pretty evenly paired up. Its hard to not get drawn in to the excitement of the game in that atmosphere.

Anywho, my job through out the game was to sit in the upper observation booth on the Auburn (home team) endzone and fire off four shots whenever a team scored. Pretty easy and a little boring. Not to mention that I had been sitting up there since about 4:30pm that afternoon and had spent all but maybe two hours of my day up there. New Years came and went with a flourish as we heard the rockets going off outside the dome, we were too concerned with breaking down the gear (we had to pull our cables out of a mess of fiber optic cables) so we could head home. By the time my head hit the pillow at 3am, I had been going for about 21 hours solid. In the pyro business, we’re often the first in and the last out at an event. All in all it was fun but one year, I’d like to be asleep in my bed before the new year rolls in.

How’d you spend your new years eve??

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