SMOKE MACHINE LOCATIONS

There's the Spirit!
An excellent, if somewhat dramatic, use of literally dozens of smoke machines is at Madame Tussaud's wax museum on Baker Street in London. The Spirit of London is a dark ride filled with animatronic celebrities and characters charting the history of the City of London. The rider is transported in a black cab styled ride vehicle (left) through the mists of time - several smoke machines working very regularly to really fog up the atmosphere for the overhead Clay Paky scans to create an interesting 'time tunnel' effect. Smoke machines are throughout the ride - so many that they must feed from a central reservoir - including the Great Fire of London scenes and 'the engine room' which depicts Queen Victoria at the controls (right). The Spirit of London ride cost £21million to create. (*This location report refers to the ride as it was in 1995).

The smoke machines were clearly running from a central fluid reservoir system, as they were simply the smoke producing 'heads' of a complete system - only the heat exchanger. I seem to remember them being silver/metal rather than black. At this time, only a couple of manufacturers were making this type of system, Rosco and possibly Jem (custom).

More recently, a video seen on YouTube shows the ride in various states of repair. Animatronics not moving as much as they used to, and seemingly only fog in the fire of London scene, whose fire video effect didn't seem to be working, nor the fireman's hose shooting water over the guests... not how I remember it from the opening year, but let us know if you saw different!

<< Back to locations menu