PC scuppers NYE fireworks in Seattle

Blue touchpaper screen of death?

By Kelly Fiveash • Get more from this author

Posted in Entertainment, 2nd January 2008 14:29 GMT

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A computer cock-up prevented a New Year fireworks show at the Seattle Center Space Needle from firing off at the stroke of midnight, much to the chagrin of the gathered crowd.

SeattlePI.com reports that in the last minute of 2007 the team responsible for the event in Microsoft's home town, spotted that the computer file intended to automatically run the fireworks show was in fact corrupted. But a reboot didn’t remedy the problem.

Pyro Spectaculars' three-man crew was forced to ditch the computer and instead had to launch the fireworks manually leading to a delay in proceedings.

When the show finally got fully underway the fireworks were out of synch with the compilation of Oscar-winning music that had been lined up especially for the event.

The likes of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and the Star Wars theme tune warbled out of the speakers unaccompanied by the appropriate firework choreography.

A Space Needle spokeswoman told SeattlePI.com that the show had started as planned at 11:59 before the team realised that the file was corrupted. She said: "Usually, they would hit a button and the computer would run the whole program."

The spokeswoman didn't reveal what computer the automated program was running on.

But a comment from a reader, who claims to have once worked for ten years on the popular New Year's Space Needle show, on King5.com's blog, reckons the culprit would have been a Microsoft Windows machine.®

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