All fired up: Special effects firm expanding in Vegas

Michelle Swafford

Thursday, April 7, 2005 | 11:01 a.m.

People who have seen special effects at concerts by Metallica, Britney Spears, Shania Twain or Puff Daddy witnessed the creative expertise of a company growing quickly in Las Vegas.

Pyrotek Special Effects Inc., which is based in Ontario, Canada, opened a Las Vegas showroom and research-and-development studio about a year ago near Valley View Boulevard and Post Road. Now it is buying five acres to complement its 5,000-square-foot office with a 20,000-square-foot warehouse.

The company has always had an office in the United States, but it tended to be located farther east.

"It wasn't helping our West Coast clients," Douglas Adams, company founder and president, said. "We took a look at Los Angeles and it wasn't my kind of town. We're here to stay."

Pyrotek has five full-time employees and several freelance workers in Las Vegas and has more than 100 employees overall.

Moving to the city that bills itself as the "Entertainment Capital of the World" is expected to increase the company's business opportunities, Adams said.

Pyrotek was started 25 years ago and specializes in shooting flames that can rise more than 1,000 feet, smoke and fog screens using liquid carbon dioxide, waterfalls and bubble features.

Its sister company, Laser Design Productions Inc., specializes in customized laser designs that incorporate colorful beams and cones that blast through the air and animated images that appear to float in space.

"If the client has a theme then I'll do something around that," Adams said. The cost for those features can range from $5,000 to more than $1 million, depending on the size of the venue, complexity of the special effects and the length of the production.

One Las Vegas company that is in talks with Pyrotek to possibly utilize those features is N9NE Group, which operates Ghostbar, the Rain nightclub and the Skin pool lounge at the Palms.

"They're very professional and can handle little things from a band to a New Year Eve's celebration," said Andy Belmonti, director of operations for N9NE Group in Las Vegas. "In this day and age if you're going to do pyrotechnics in any setting you want somebody that knows what they're doing."

He said venues that use special effects have to be careful of malfunctions, which have injured and killed people during performances and special events elsewhere.

Pyrotek and Laser Design Productions work with only a handful of Las Vegas performers currently, but Adams says that likely will change now that his company has a local office.

He predicted his company's business would grow as more and more performers opt to have ongoing shows on the Las Vegas Strip.

The biggest challenge to operating a special effects company -- aside from complying with the multitude of regulations and permits -- is being creative enough to make each artist stand out from the others, he said, adding that performers want more effects these days because of the array of options.

Those options are a result of technology advancements, making most of today's special effects digital, using images that are more precise and can be edited, Adams said.

Technology has advanced so much that UNLV launched a series of courses for entertainment engineers, said Bob Boehm, UNLV distinguished professor of mechanical engineering.

The program is a cross between the fine arts and engineering schools, he said.

Special effects have been creeping into Las Vegas performances for awhile so it is logical that companies that produce them would want to be here, Boehm said, noting that there are a lot of local companies that do design and product development for live shows.

The intricate and elaborate performances that draw thousands of tourists to Las Vegas annually also bring technical companies looking to be a part of the creative scene, he said.