The fellow who organized this whole thing is named Bruce Flora. He runs a company called Kiteman Productions which produces kite shows for theme parks in the Orlando area. They tend to be water-based, using ski boats and jet skis to tow kites around. The largest show he's produced was called "Surprise in the Skies," again done at Epcot, and ran for a full year. The show lasted 14 minutes, took 5 hours to set up, and involved 90 people!
Not surprisingly, then, one of the major attractions of the World Festival of Kites was the ongoing show out on the Lagoon. At virtually any time, you could look out on the lagoon and see at least two stacks of big diamonds with tails, and at least one giant single line being towed around. Occasionally you'd see individual monster stunt kites, dueling airplane-shaped soft kites, a full-sized Tako Tako (Peter Lynn's 90' inflated octopus), one of Pierre Fabre's monster single lines, and so forth.
To keep things safe for the flyers, the stunt kites were flown off pulley-driven gizmos (to reduce the amount of pull needed to turn the kites) which were attached directly to the boat -- the flyers didn't have to hold the pull of the kite themselves.
The scan at the top of the page shows the lagoon show in action, as seen from the shore by America. If you look closely, you may be able to pick out 4 stacks of diamond kites, as well as a barge with a set of banners on it. On the right side of the full image, you might also be able to pick out the Red Baron kite. (44k)
In order to make dealing with the big stacks of 6 foot diamonds easier, launchers are used to help get the kites in the air. (46k)
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