SMOKE MACHINE LOCATIONS

Hartlepool Historic Quay

Opened in 1994, Hartlepool Historic Quay recreates a busy dock in the late 1700s. It was a multi-million pound flagship project of the Teesside Development Corporation.
The "Fighting Ships" walk-through exhibition climaxes in a battle scene inside a frigate ship, utilising several large smoke machines to simulate cannons firing and are computer controlled. No expense appears to been spared, and we think that the machines were the classic (now long discontinued) Jem ZR20 fogger. The theming on the experience was originally carried out by Scenic Route and more recently refurbished by our friends at Scenic Route / Paragon Creative.

Above written in 1999.

2019 Update
The stewardship of the museum now belongs to the Royal Navy museums group and no longer Hartlepool Council. 
The Fighting Ships exhibit was overhauled, but seemingly only audibly, with the sound track, narration and introductory video changed, the final video removed and some changes to lighting in the final scene moving to LED.  
Originally you followed the story of a Scottish surgeon on the ship that you were being shown around in the walk-through.  He acted as a guide and narrator to what was happening and what you were seeing.  Supposedly, his accent was too strong for people to quite grasp (and also Hartlepool is nowhere near Scotland so this did seem a strange choice of regional accent to choose, especially as the museum was paid for by the now-defunct Teesside Development Corporation - at great cost!).  
Our new host/narrator is now a twenty-something (although realistically perhaps not young enough to be a) Southern accented powder monkey (who were normally 12 - 14 years old).  In comparison, the narration audio seems incredibly quiet from the speakers now, and gone are the continuous creaking ship sound effects which alluded to the theming that you are in fact on board the ship, below decks, throughout your tour through the various scenes.  Alas, insofar as smoke machines are concerned, in the final climactic battle scene there is only one solitary smoke machine now - a Martin RGB jet fogger below the waterline in the tableau where water is coming through a hole in the keel.  There are no smoke machines near the cannons any more.  A stark contrast to how many there were originally, described above. It definitely has echoes of the Madame Tussauds Battle of Trafalgar tableaux from 1967 to the 1980s.
I think the show used to start when there were enough people waiting to get into the quayside, and you would go through the experience first before anything else, but now it's a show that is activated hourly, so you can go through more than once.
It's still a very good and immersive place to visit, and there are detailed tableaux in every re-created shop along the quayside - over 100 wax figures in total, plus the Trincomalee frigate which you can board - the oldest floating warship in Europe. It's well worth a visit.

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