(gentle music) (crowd chattering) - Here are your champions.

Follow me.

(crowd cheering) - [Attendee] Hey, I'm so grateful that we're honoring Rhode Island educators this evening.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) - So about five to 10 minutes before we were actually gonna send the boats up and light WaterFire, we had this individual in the basin that decided to make a show for himself.

- Now I heard someone jump in and they're knocking things over.

- [PK] He came down, he hopped over a bridge onto one of the abutments.

- We're watching this whole thing play out and then the guy starts swimming to one of the braziers.

- [PK] Of course the crowd is wondering what the hell's going on, is it part of the show?

- And we were just watching him just astounded by the whole turn of events.

- [PK] Someone crowd wise called 911.

That call went to the police boat.

- This police boat just goes flying up the river.

- I saw the police go by at an excessive rate of speed.

And I said "all right, I know what's going on."

- [PK] They came up so fast, it created a wake.

So it was tipping over the brazier.

So everything that was about to light was falling over.

- It was just kind of a mess.

And of course, you don't know what's going on.

- [PK] When he jumps back in, he goes right for the braziers.

He's tired, he starts grabbing the braziers, knocking over brazier after brazier after brazier.

- It's part of party town Does that make me angry?

No.

- [PK] The most difficult part about that was who am I talking to on the other end?

I can't talk to five of my team members.

- But with this, you asked what happens, this course of all kinds of discipline, but we're resilient, we get right back to work.

- Meanwhile we hear all these people just clapping when they finally had apprehended this guy who was kind of causing chaos.

- [Crew] Wait, you guys.

- Four minutes.

- [PK] One of the things about WaterFire is that we're creative, we can think on our feet and we can just adapt and change and make it happen.

- My name's Levy.

I'm a production manager at WaterFire.

This is my assistant manager Angel, just give you a quick safety speech.

So we're gonna let the torches you wanna hold at 90 degree angle.

- Two minutes guys, two minutes.

- I'm gonna lead you.

- Okay.

- We got it.

We got you.

- We've never done this before.

- We got you.

(crowd chatting) ♪ Little dance ♪ ♪ Make a little love ♪ No selfies, no cameras out, when we get down there, we'll do all of that for you.

- You gonna stay here and let it light off both of you guys.

- We're lighting now.

Gimme like 10 seconds, but you should be good to come in.

(crowd cheering) (upbeat music) Follow me.

- [Crew] All right, let's do this.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - When that first note goes off at sunset actually before WaterFire, but the soundtrack starts playing.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) Many of us always, even though we've been doing this for, I've been doing it for 12 years, get goosebumps.

It's like showtime, and it never gets tired.

- [Barnaby] Art can connect people, it can change lives.

We have people who come to WaterFire and talk about those, their first date was going to WaterFire and how much it's a story in their family's history.

So it's nice to do that.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - Throughout the night, we burn a lot of wood.

And what we have to do is every once in a while we have to go to the wood pile in order to collect enough wood in order to be able to last throughout the night.

In this particular case, we had wood left over during the day.

So we just came down to the Veteran's Memorial and got the wood from here.

Last feed is at 11:40.

(gentle music) - [Peter] WaterFire is a process.

It's in our experience, but it's also a process.

It's a community engagement.

Today it started at 5:30, 6:00 AM.

(crowd chatting) - They're like, we're here.

We're gonna make dreams.

Let's put some wishes on some stars and makes people's nights.

And I'm like, yep, that's what we're doing.

And I'm waiting for a little potato.

I finally got to sit down, and yeah, just waiting for the little potato song.

Volunteers are waiting for the little potato song.

♪ You're my little potato ♪ ♪ You're my little potato ♪ ♪ You're my little potato to dog you up ♪ ♪ You come from underground ♪ - It's become like an anthem for our volunteers and they just love this song.

And it's just a song that keeps them going and they just know the end of the night is here.

♪ You're my little potato ♪ ♪ You're my little potato ♪ ♪ You're my little potato to dog you up ♪ ♪ You come from underground ♪ - They're like little potato.

That's the strangest song to play.

And I'm like, yeah, that's how we all know.

That's how you all know.

- It's very tedious because we have to take down pretty much every star one by one.

I started at the warehouse this morning at 5:15 AM and I didn't go home today, so I worked all the way through.

- We're feeling good.

We're like at the point where it's about to take down tents, electrical, lighting.

(bright music) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) - [Barnaby] The crew, the staff, our volunteers, all of them are incredibly dedicated to making WaterFire work.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) - So everyone's done.

Recyclables are done.

So the rest of the team's here.

- And the bridge is done too?

- We're going over and looking right now.

- These are very important, very important containers.

- These hold WaterFire together, literally, literally - I don't think there's too much left to be done yet.

- To me this feels early.

- It's 10 past one and if this is the last, then we're ahead of schedule.

- Prometheus has a hole in it.

They're pumping out water.

So it's about another 15 minutes.

(upbeat music) It's been a long day.

- [Crew] I keep drinking my water too quick.

- All these snacks.

Every snack bag, this guy's in it, it's crazy.

- We're almost there.

It's the one last push.

Right Tim?

You're good.

(upbeat music) - WaterFire, baby.

- So if you come walk your dog at dawn tomorrow morning, you sort of rub your eyes and say "wait a minute, weren't there lots of people here last night?"

That's part of the art piece.

It sort of blossoms like one of those flowers that flower just at sunset for the moon moths.

And then in the next morning they're gone.

(upbeat music continues) (typewriter clacking) - Thank you very much.

It was a good day.

- [Crew] It was, it was.

- And I don't know.

I think we're gonna blink and we're gonna be doing it again in another seven days.

- [Crew] Yes, we are.

- [Crew] The nightmare continues.

- [PK] We're physically exhausted.

And that mental attitude of going in and saying "we made it through this day and we just touched 50,000 people and we brought memories", that's what it's all about.

- [Crew] At the end of the day, you feel like you've accomplished something, you've really transformed the city.

You've made a difference in thousands and thousands of people's lives that particular day.

So it's rewarding and that's why people do it.

- All right guys.

See you Monday.

(crew chatting) - [Crew] Good job.

- [Crew] That's a wrap.

- [Crew] That is a wrap.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues)