Musical fountain
The displays are commonly synchronised to music and also feature lighting effects that are refracted and reflected by the moving water.
Later, choreography could be prerecorded on a punched paper card which was scanned by a computer; and even later, it could be recorded on magnetic tape or, in the most modern shows, on a CD or in an app along with the music.
In most automated examples, the choreography is still painstakingly programmed by hand, while some shows are still played live from a control console (sometimes recorded for automatic playback).
Péter Bodor (June 22, 1788 – August 17, 1849) was a Hungarian mechanical engineer who built a musical or chiming fountain in the Transylvanian town of Marosvásárhely (now Târgu Mureş, Romania) between 1820 and 1822.
The bottom of the fountain plate is equipped with 1300 multicolored reflectors and water circuits composed of more than two kilometers of pipes with almost 3000 nozzles.
[citation needed] In 1908, Darlington constructed a fountain in Denver City Park lake at a cost of US$19,577 (equivalent to $664,000 in 2023).
The fountain served as an icon for the West End Park and surrounding yacht clubs and numerous restaurants that were located in the area.
All of Darlington's fountains required an operator to change the water effects and lighting and were likely used in conjunction with music played by a band or orchestra for special events.
The fountains were the first in the country to be equipped with the mechanics that allowed the changing of the spray and displayed lights according to the season and holiday.
However, rather than controlling the effects directly like a piano roll, it was marked with commands that told the operators when to push the buttons and throw the switches.
Besides 3 million watts of lights and a gigantic pool containing 1,400 water nozzles, there were over 400 gas jets with a mechanism that caused colored flames and fireworks were shot from over 350 launchers, creating a nighttime spectacle on a grand scale.
Fontana Fountains first introduced the use of stainless-steel floaters allowing bigger water show applications even in coasts and lakes.
Many of them have updated the look with individually servomotor-controlled nozzles, large water screens on which video can be projected, and laser effects.
Shows are built not only in the standard linear form, but in circular, semicircular and oblong shapes, in multiple pools, and many other layouts.
The fountain was very large, designed as a concrete bowl around a 'moonscape' of broken limestone, at the center of which was a tiled dome studded with pointy black nozzles.
[5] WET (Water Entertainment Technologies) also designed the Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas, which are set in a man-made lake 1,000 feet (300 m) long with an area of 9 acres (3.6 ha).
Shooters outline all aspects of the layout, allowing for the arc and circles to rise as columns and curtains of water, as well as providing high-speed chase sequences.
Performing to everything from opera to classical to Broadway to pop, the Fountains of Bellagio run every day on the half-hour, and every quarter-hour during the evening.
A team of dive-certified engineers is on-site at all times, maintaining the fountain's complex mechanical, electrical and hydraulic systems.
Computers aid the process, but engineers must still spend weeks or months on each new performance before it is ready to be placed in rotation with the other shows.
Colored lights are arrayed along the front of the fountain in individually controllable groups in red, blue, amber, and white, and the back curtain and Peacock sprays have their own lights—green and yellow for the back curtain, and two sets each red, blue and amber for the Peacock.
In combination with the fountain during daylight hours the box appears mirrored, but at night it is illuminated to reveal its interior.
The process of assembling, installing, and testing the show's numerous components and equipment in Paradise Bay spanned a period of approximately 15 months.
Conceived by VP of Parades and Spectaculars Steve Davison and designed by Walt Disney Creative Entertainment, the show has more than 1,200 fountains and includes lights, water, fire, fog, and lasers, with high-definition projections on mist screens.
was a nightly nighttime spectacular at Disneyland Paris, based on Peter Pan's shadow story and included scenes from many Disney Films.
Water screens and fountains located in the moat of Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant were provided by the French company Aquatique Show.
Located indoors in Nashville, Tennessee, under a glass dome at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, this musical fountain features an 85-foot (26 m) high center geyser surrounded by 68 vertical and 28 arching jets, each with its own RGB LED fixture, plus a fog system and 5 articulating color theatrical lights from above.
The sophisticated system was designed by water feature specialists Aquatic Creations, Inc., and plays original music shows choreographed by H2Oarts.com, both of California.
Multimedia fountain Roshen is located in Vinnytsia, a city in west-central Ukraine, on the banks of the Southern Buh.
For the fountain shows, powerful LED lights are used allowing the application of bright and showy backlighting resulting in various picturesque effects.
