Starting strong is great… but what truly stays in people’s minds is a powerful finale. Every performer knows it, and so does the creative team behind the popular Alton Towers resort. That’s why every November they close the season with a bang, staging a fireworks spectacular accompanied by a dazzling light and laser show.
Of course, a great finale always needs an element of surprise. That’s why Alton Towers adds a new twist to its fireworks show every year, so even those who come back time and time again are surprised and enjoy it as if it were the first time.
The 2025 edition of the three-day event was no exception. Built around the brand-new story of Alton Intelligence, this 25-minute show opened the doors of imagination to the fascinating, multi-dimensional world of AI.
A key contribution to this year’s event was a brilliant lighting design created by Olly Suckling, associate lighting designer Martin Winton, and production manager John Slevin, featuring 187 CHAUVET Professional fixtures supplied by GLX Productions.
Run on two ChamSys MagicQ MQ250M Stadium consoles, the show creatively blended lighting and lasers with massive pyrotechnics to create an immersive experience that transported Alton Towers guests into the world of AI.
Creating these powerful, artificial intelligence-inspired images required close collaboration on many levels, and one of the key factors was the strong rapport between Suckling and the GLX Productions team. Although Suckling has designed previous Alton fireworks shows, this was the first time GLX Productions took part in the event.
Suckling and GLX have worked together on numerous projects in the past, and they drew on that experience to create a fresh new look for the 2025 Alton Towers fireworks show.
GLX was a fantastic collaborator. This was a new project with new challenges for them, but luckily they could draw on their experience from other jobs where the build took place while an event was open to the public, so they handled this one incredibly well, said Suckling.
GLX provided a range of CHAUVET Professional fixtures that were more than ready to keep pace with the imaginative pyrotechnics. These included 78 Color STRIKE M motorized strobe-washes, 48 COLORado PXL Bar 16 pixel-mappable batons, 21 Maverick Storm 1 Beam fixtures, and 40 Rogue Outcast 1L Beam fixtures.
“Alton Towers has its own weather ecosystem, as the park sits in a small valley with a lake at the bottom”, explained Suckling. “So IP65 is essential for this show, because warm days and cold nights with high humidity mean the fixtures end up exposed to cold and misty conditions”.
Expanding on this point, Zak Nicholson of GLX noted: “For some time now, GLX has focused on investing in IP-rated equipment because it gives us more flexibility in the solutions we offer clients, and it simply makes sense. A complete ChamSys control solution also makes sense on projects like this. We have a large number of ChamSys consoles, so when the GeNetix range was released, it was the natural step to invest in GeNetix nodes as well”.
By using the GeNetix nodes to integrate with MagicQ, Suckling could see exactly what was happening across the network. He also loved the ability to save scenes directly to the nodes and then recall them remotely from the front panels.
This sped up testing, as it allowed us to deploy test patterns when checking the network and troubleshooting faults. Was the issue the network between nodes, or was it a faulty cable downstream from the node? We could answer those questions quickly and easily, he explained.
As for the fixtures, Suckling noted that with this year’s artificial intelligence theme, it was crucial to consider every choice carefully. His design featured five 16-metre towers — the “AI towers” — staggered along the edge of the lake closest to the audience, along with additional fixtures positioned on the far side of the lake, where the fireworks were launched from.
Each tower was topped with Maverick Storm 1 Beam fixtures, which Suckling used to build excitement by creating towering columns of light. He also added an extra dimension to the towers by highlighting them with light from the Rogue Outcast 1L Beam fixtures.
Suckling created a captivating sense of depth in the staging area by coordinating backlighting from his Color STRIKE M fixtures with the firework launch positions. He also enhanced the evening’s laser shows by supporting them with colourful light from the COLORado PXL 16 Bar battens, which were mounted on “V”-shaped trusses suspended from each AI tower.
Blending the lighting with the spectacular fireworks once again required a perfect balance in 2025, just as it does every year.
Choosing the right lighting to complement the fireworks always requires careful planning. There are moments when the lighting should take centre stage, others when the laser or the pyrotechnics command all the attention… and also moments when everything comes together to create truly epic scenes, Suckling explained.
Suckling, Winton and the GLX team worked hard to achieve those moments. The result was a seamless, multi-dimensional show that delivered guests a special memory as the Alton Towers season came to a spectacular close.
