Our story — Chronix, creating emotions since 2017

Key milestones

Nine years of progress, ten years of sheer stubbornness.

Chronix is not the result of a business plan: it is the sum of nine years of projects, of prototypes that failed and prototypes that worked, of strange venues lit at 3am, and of a shared obsession with emotion done properly.

2017 — Founding, and first work with Puy du Fou
Show engineering, in Saint-Quentin

Chronix is founded by Pierre KOLLE and Benjamin BALGA, inside a start-up incubator. Building on the conclusions drawn during a year of research at Master's level, Pierre develops a set of guidelines to put his concept into practice, starting with a first principle: use technology to foster the creation of emotion, by coupling it with the principles established during his research. First development for Puy du Fou, and a structuring partnership with Capricorn Production.
2018 — The first show built around the Chronix concept
The battle of 1557: the walls are still echoing!

Chronix's first original creation, from a script by Victorien George. The idea behind this show is to put into practice the interactive control system Chronix had been developing since 2017: the technology adapts to the live performance, not the other way round. A range of weapons are fitted with sensors and cue the show automatically (swords, arquebuses, cannons). Several other projects run in parallel, including one with Fabrice Chouillier (Celesta), who entrusts us with an on-board pyrotechnic sequencer for a flightboarder.
2019 — Interactive pyrotechnics at its peak
Proven professional expertise

The fourth version of the interactive pyrotechnic controller and its companion software: a finished, fully functional release covering every scenario envisaged, allowing Chronix to demonstrate both its capacity to innovate and its command of safety, by creating a pyrotechnic system linked to sensors and complex processes. A long-standing partnership also begins with Omega Production, likewise focused on pyrotechnics.
2020 — La Maison du Frisson
Our first self-produced show

Creation of La Maison du Frisson, an immersive haunted trail: animated automata (pneumatic and electromechanical), motorised sets and mapping onto 3D faces. A production that drew real attention — including a report on France 3 — and that founded the Chronix Halloween universe, right in the middle of the COVID period, during which R&D never stopped and during which, on top of restrictive health measures, the start-up took audiences into the heart of its machinery for the first time.
2021 — On-board R&D for CrashKart
From service provider to product designer

Design and manufacture of the on-board technology for CrashKart connected karts : sensors, laser fire, embedded electronics, a steering-wheel unit with light and sound. Chronix shifts from being a service provider to being a product designer. A long-standing partnership that would lead to several versions of the unit, as well as a game server managing the karts and the races.
2022 — The connected bike
From show to play

Release of the first generation of the Chronix connected bike (in light-totem mode). This concept opens the way to a new way of thinking about interaction with an audience. With this playful approach to technology, first explored with CrashKart, Chronix broadens its offer and connects play, sport and immersive shows.
2023 — Partnership with ACT Technologie
Mastering fire

The partnership with A.C.T begins, along with the design of a flame management controller: a bespoke device that drives fire effects safely, over DMX. A new product that also widens the palette of special effects we master in house.
2024 — A new home
Thinking bigger

Cramped in its offices and accumulating more and more equipment, the time comes for Chronix to find larger premises combining storage, workshops and offices. This new setting allows the start-up to accelerate its strategic development.
Late 2024 — The first light trails and large-scale shows
A new means of expression

After seven years spent developing technologies, moving from project to project and building experience alongside clients and partners, Chronix brings all of its technologies together into standardised products — true Swiss army knives of the events world — and starts deploying its concepts independently, at scale, in light trails. The recovery of the events industry also gives the start-up room to express itself through large-scale shows.
Today
100+ projects, in house and for clients, and the appetite to go further

Chronix's expertise now spans electronic and software design, but also command of the various show disciplines (sound, lighting, pyrotechnics, flames, laser), as well as production, artistic creation and delegated production (major national events).

The story is written with our clients and our partners, and we can't wait to tell it here.

Our DNA

Three statementsthat say it all.

Chronix can be summed up in one sentence: technological innovation at the service of emotion. But that sentence unfolds in three parts, which shape every decision we make.

— Our DNA

Innovation

Where others assemble off-the-shelf equipment, we design and develop our own tools — sensors, electronic boards, software, mechanisms — whenever a project calls for it. But innovation is not purely technical: it comes from a way of thinking about art and about the relationship we have with artists.

— Our purpose

To create unforgettable emotions.

Technology is not the goal: it is the means. Our job is to produce the moment when the audience holds its breath, smiles, applauds, or still remembers six months later what it saw. Everything else — the engineering, the production, the operation on site — exists only to serve that moment.

— Our ambition

To leave our mark on the events industry.

To become the reference in France for bespoke, highly interactive scenographic installations. Not by growing at any cost, but by multiplying recognisable projects: the ones people quote, the ones people share, the ones we remember for the rest of our lives.

The founders

Where an engineer meets an artist-technician.

Chronix is first and foremost an encounter: between profiles that are not used to working together in the same office.

At the heart of the Saint-Quentin workshop, two engineers imagine, design and build the systems: embedded electronics, show-control software, mechanics, prototyping. Around them, show technicians who operate on site (sound and lighting control, pyrotechnics) and artists who contribute to the scenography of live performance, before the first line of code is ever written.

This artist-engineer-technician mix is what makes us different. In practice: we don't take in a creative brief and hand it off to an outside studio. We rework it in house, break it down into technical constraints, prototype, adapt — until the artistic promise holds up, on paper as much as on stage.

Our unofficial motto: "technology must support the emotion, never betray it." When a simple solution is enough, we choose the simple solution. When a project needs three months of R&D, we spend them. But above all, the technology we create exists in order to disappear in the eyes of the audience. Nobody should notice it.

A concept that sets us apart:
the story of an encounter.

Nine years of progress, ten years of sheer stubbornness.

Show engineering, in Saint-Quentin

The battle of 1557: the walls are still echoing!

Proven professional expertise

Our first self-produced show

From service provider to product designer

From show to play

Mastering fire

Thinking bigger

A new means of expression

100+ projects, in house and for clients, and the appetite to go further

Three statementsthat say it all.

Innovation

To create unforgettable emotions.

To leave our mark on the events industry.

Where an engineer meets an artist-technician.

Local authorities, theme parks, brands and industry partners.

Want to write the next chapterwith us?

A concept that sets us apart:the story of an encounter.

Nine years of progress, ten years of sheer stubbornness.

Show engineering, in Saint-Quentin

The battle of 1557: the walls are still echoing!

Proven professional expertise

Our first self-produced show

From service provider to product designer

From show to play

Mastering fire

Thinking bigger

A new means of expression

100+ projects, in house and for clients, and the appetite to go further

Three statementsthat say it all.

Innovation

To create unforgettable emotions.

To leave our mark on the events industry.

Where an engineer meets an artist-technician.

Local authorities, theme parks, brands and industry partners.

Want to write the next chapterwith us?

A concept that sets us apart:
the story of an encounter.