GHMF: 2025 Season Update
Blog by GHMF Committee Chair Jerry T.
When I attended the May 19th City Council Meeting to give a preseason update on the fountain, we had just completed two weekends of song testing in anticipation of starting the 2025 Season on Memorial Day weekend. That season concluded on the last Saturday of September and was significantly successful, so I am very pleased to give you this update.
First of all, from a physical plant perspective, I can confidently tell you yet again (I know I sound like a broken record on this issue) that the Fountain is in better shape than it’s ever been. Our volunteer team was able to accomplish another batch of the items on our Master Task List during the season, in addition to doing routine maintenance.
The rebuild of Pump #3 that was completed in the spring performed flawlessly throughout the season, with no issues or water leakage.
We completed the process of replacing the computers and monitors that store and play our shows each night, so we have all new equipment in place there. Winterization of the Fountain is already completed, and the Fountain is in hibernation for the off-season.
When our Thursday crew returns to the hill in March, we’ll be focusing on replacing the seals in Pump #2 and completing the rebuilding of the rest of our legacy butterfly valves that was begun this past spring.
We currently have 54 items on our master task list that still need attention, so we’ll have plenty to do before we get under way Memorial Day weekend next year. If that number sounds daunting, bear in mind that we have completed 890 tasks since we started keeping track of them a few years ago!
Secondly, the Musical Fountain Committee voted in the spring to move ahead with the process of replacing the LED fixtures that light up the Fountain every night. That process was slowed by the tariff battles that began earlier this year, but I am happy to report that the equipment has been procured and is in storage waiting for installation during this offseason! We are very excited about this project, as it will add more light fixtures to the current system, and each new light fixture is about 2.5 times brighter than the units they will replace! We’ll be developing the specifics of the fund raising program to help pay for this major upgrade during our spring Committee meetings in anticipation of rolling it out to the public as we begin the season next year.
Thirdly, while we continued to maintain and keep the fountain in top physical shape this year, the team also focused on the production side.
We again added more new choreographers this season.
We completed over 100 new songs that played this year!
We had 110 shows scheduled, with 107 of them actually occurring due to two weather cancellations and one technical cancellation. Only two of the 107 were identical, with our Greatest Showman theme show playing twice. Every other show was a unique experience, with a significant number of “firsts” this year as we expanded the library to include new song genres!
The catalog of songs continues to grow, and the Committee will review well over 100 more songs for the Choreographers to choose from at our upcoming December meeting.
Our social media presence exploded this year, growing from approximately 25,000 followers as the season began to well over 47,000 currently. This was the result of new graphics, new videos of the Fountain in action, and consistently interesting posts produced by our team.
Our crowd counts this year were up significantly to a total of over 64,000 fans (not including our two fireworks show nights), a marked increase from the 54,000 who saw the Fountain shows last year.
We also had the opportunity once again to talk to fans on the radio, with multiple visits with WAWL and WGHN. Seems that everybody loves the Fountain!
Lastly, and perhaps the most exciting thing that is happening, we are in the midst of creating the next generation of choreography software, a project being spearheaded for us by Brad Boyink, whom many of you know and who is an exofficio member of the Committee by virtue of his involvement with the Coast Guard Festival organization. The development process is moving ahead rapidly, with a beta version already in the hands of several of our more prolific choreographers for testing and analysis. This new software tool allows choreographers to see much more realistic simulations of the work they are creating, and it introduces new tools that streamline the process of choreography. One of our testers has estimated that it cuts in half the amount of time required to do a song (which historically is about one hour per minute of song time). And it simultaneously improves the quality of the work produced, due to the ease of implementing complex choreography approaches using these new tools. This bodes very well for the future, as our current choreographers can be more productive, and the easier-to-use tools should allow more people to become choreographers.
All of us involved with the Fountain are proud to be a part of these efforts, and I want to again thank the City Council and all Fountain fans, wherever you might be, for your ongoing support of the Fountain! Let’s continue to work together to make sure that the Fountain is Forever!
