History

History of Snow Business

How it began

In 1983 Darcey Crownshaw (the founder of Snow Business) used ingenuity and excellent contacts to manufacture a few bags of very high-quality fake snow for a friend who worked in Special Effects.This artificial snow (SnowFX) was made from recycled materials and was biodegradable. It could be sprayed onto plants, trees, sloping roofs, and even moving cars in a most realistic way. It left good footprints and tire tracks. It made excellent snowballs and was actor friendly. It soon became the industry standard and replaced the salts, polystyrene, urea formaldehyde, marble dust, and other (less eco-friendly) products in use at that time.


Development

Darcey’s fascination with snow and winter effects, coupled with the steady flow of work and the continued new challenges presented by filmmakers, resulted in Darcey producing the widest range of products and equipment ever available.


Snow Business provided everything from 1/100th scale falling snow for intricate model sets to the world record for the largest area ever covered with artificial falling snow, from cold wet slush, to a crisp white dry warm snow (that could be laid over real cold snow to make the actors more comfortable).

New Markets

Snow Business's roots were in feature films and television but new markets starting contacting them: visual merchandising, live events, theatres, exhibitions, winter wonderlands, snow events, even weddings. Snow Business created for them the stunning snow scenes they had seen on the big screen.


These new markets presented new challenges, the snows had to meet different specifications and had to be able to withstand very different conditions. Specialists were recruited by Snow Business to develop bespoke products including Display Snow (a fire proof, impact resistant snow), special falling snow machines (with anti-ice formation features and remote feeder tanks), SnowGlobes, and SnowWalls.

Today

Snow Business has grown from a small enterprise based on Darcey’s kitchen table in 1983 to become the acknowledged world leader in snow and winter effects for film, television, live events, visual merchandising, theme parks, theatre, and weddings. 


The company is ISO 9001 and ISO14001 approved, has agents in over 20 countries with 200 types of snow, and a huge array of frosts, ices, snow dressing, and snow equipment.

Center of Excellence

Snow Business, with all its equipment, sample libraries, technical expertise, image banks, and other facilities, is an unrivaled center of excellence used by technicians, institutions, and universities from around the world. This resource is available to everyone who needs to learn more about the possibilities of snow or winter effects for any project they wish to develop.

The Future

The company continues to invest in development and training.  Snow Business is leading the way in the making of eco-friendly snow, with eco-friendly packaging. Its snow machinery, already the most efficient and quietest, is now being further improved with sophisticated remote monitoring and control systems. New products and new equipment continue to be developed, and new branches are opening around the world. Snow Business is the world leader in artificial snow and winter effects; it continues to work hard to maintain that position into the future.

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