Skyfire is back baby!

A crowd of 100,000 is expected at Lake Burley Griffin on Saturday night to watch the first Skyfire since 2019.

Transcript

00:00 We're back, we're back, it's fantastic.

00:02 What will be the 32nd instalment of an event that began as our radio station's way of genuinely

00:17 saying thank you to the community, to the city that we call home. We're very humbled

00:23 to say it's become Canberra's largest single day event.

00:30 Obviously great to be back, this would have been our 20th Skyfire, so we're just as excited with

00:41 this one as we were with the first one. There's 11 platforms on the lake spreading over 450 metres,

00:48 there's in excess 2000 aerial fireworks, 15,000 ground-based effects, all interfaced with six

00:55 kilometres of cable to synchronise the fireworks to the 18 minute soundtrack. We have a lot of

01:02 things this year that actually people haven't seen before, there's crackling willows,

01:06 there's some new pastel colours with magenta and sky blue, and obviously the favourites that

01:13 we've been using over the past few years. It's great to be part of a display that encompasses

01:20 the community and they can come down and have a look and enjoy themselves, because for us

01:24 it is about the entertainment of people and it's in mass which is fortunate. So

01:29 if we can get 100,000 people there having a great time, especially after the last few years that

01:37 hasn't been so great, we've done our job and I'd like to thank Craig for giving us another

01:42 opportunity to put on a show for everybody. So come down, enjoy, have fun. We will be targeting

01:49 underage drinking in particular, keeping an eye out for that, and any antisocial behaviour.

01:55 So a couple of things we can ask, if you are planning to drink, please plan a way home,

02:02 don't drink drive, we will be out looking for that. If you've got older teenagers or young

02:08 kids going out with their friends, try and have an idea of where they're going and what they're up to,

02:14 to make sure that you know where they are and that they're going to be safe. We'll be able

02:20 to assist you if needed. If we do find any underage drinking, our first contact is to

02:26 get onto the parents to come and collect them. And that's basically it. We'll be out, we'll be there,

02:31 we'll be friendly, come and say hello, but we're there to keep everyone safe and get them home.

02:36 And as usual, we'll have our normal beach patrols in the city afterwards for any after events.

02:43 Tomorrow evening we'll be running services across light rail and all bus services from 5pm

02:49 are free until the end of service. We'll have additional people out, we'll have additional

02:55 transport people on, transport officers on site at the event, and we'll also have an additional

03:01 20 articulated vehicles moving along the corridors to help bring people in in an orderly fashion.

03:08 And then also at the end of the event we'll be able to move people back out. I would recommend

03:13 that people take public transport on this occasion, use the main corridors, use our park and ride

03:20 facilities, and that'll ease the congestion across Commonwealth Avenue and supporting areas.

03:26 There is a lot of road closures around the parliamentary precincts, so take that into

03:30 consideration. Well I just hope that everybody has a really fun and safe night. You know, I think

03:36 five years ago to be a part of those conversations of "oh my goodness we've got to pull Skyfy"

03:41 obviously because of COVID was really sad, and then you know the conversations behind the scenes

03:45 "is it ever coming back?" and for it to come back is awesome. It's back. Yeah look anyone who's been

03:53 in Canberra long enough to remember back in the days when we used to have our own fireworks in the

03:58 backyard, you may have come across the $50 bag or $100 bag and that was pretty awesome. This is a

04:04 couple of hundred grand's worth of bag, so yeah you should come and check it out. It's going to be

04:08 pretty sweet. Cheers.

04:09 [Thanks for watching!]

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