China Firework Exports And An Update On The British Fireworks Championship

This Article First Appeared In Fireworks Magazine Autumn 2019

Inspecting Fireworks On A Cold Day In China

I’m filing this month from 40,000 feet somewhere over Nashville, travelling down to the 17th International Symposium on Fireworks in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The temperature at the resort is averaging 32 degrees and by all accounts we’re in for quite a treat. That’s as if we didn’t have a big enough treat in 2017 in Japan - I will never forget the quality of their firework displays with several 24 inch shells launched and 12 inch shells fired like they were going out of fashion! Expect an update on that in the next issue.

The global fireworks industry has recently been affected by the latest delays to affect the China fireworks export process. I received word in mid April of issues shipping fireworks from Shanghai,  with only exports through the more expensive Behai Port being available. Different people would tell you different reasons for the issues, but essentially what I’ve been told is there was a disagreement between the local customs authorities in two local ports that handle exports, and a firm involved with the transportation side. This primarily affected exports to the US for July 4th, but anybody that had goods to ready to ship then got tied up. Shipping has opened again now but how long for is anybody’s guess.


Speaking of China, I was out in a cold and snowy January (snowy in Liuyang, and the UK too I think). One thing that caught my eye this time was further improvements in safety. For the very first time, I was told off for entering a manufacturing bay - because there were too many people in the bay. Basically it was a shells production line which only permitted one person in the manufacturing area at a time. If I entered to take a closer look, then the worker stopped and walked out. I appreciate that’s best practice, but it’s not something I’ve ever seen Chinese workers take seriously before.


My congratulations to Cliff Stonestreet who has agreed to continue chairing the BPA for a further year until March 2020. We have lots of interesting work going on at the BPA at the moment, but I don’t want to steal Cliff’s words so I’ll let him update you on that.

The British Firework Championships seems to be in trouble again, with four teams now withdrawing from the 2019 ‘Champion of Champions’. Gala Fireworks, Blitz Fireworks, Fantastic Fireworks and now my company Star Fireworks have all withdrawn. Gala and Blitz left fairly early on in the process, and Fantastic withdrew in March. There was no written protocol for dealing with this so after Fantastic Fireworks left the organisers unfortunately tried to re-jig the competition, ditching the original firing order, changing the prize money and stipulating which team would fire which night instead of a draw. It was first one format, then another, then back again. It almost seemed as fast as the organisers could fill the gaps with stand-in teams, another one left. There were four formats over the space of six weeks and a whole lot more that maybe I’ll go into another time. 

Star Fireworks Championship Display Plymouth 2013

can only talk for Star Fireworks, but we withdrew after asking a lot of you for advice and discussing it in house. Virtually every single person agreed: with so many changes in format and prize money and now with three or four former non-champions able to win and call themselves ‘Champion of Champions’, we felt the competition had lost its once revered gravitas and we just had no confidence in the event. Having last won in 2013 we looked forward to it for years, but it’s just not the same when you’re not competing in the competition you signed up for any more, but instead a cobbled together likeness.  There are now only two former Champions who qualified to take part, plus stand-ins Aurora Fireworks, Phoenix Fireworks and Nemesis Pyrotechnics plus one further stand-in yet to be announced - all fighting for whatever format this now pans into. We wish all competitors the very best and hope Plymouth is able to recover from these problems because it used to be a really good event that was worth fighting for. It’s just a shame they had to tinker with it this year, our firers were so looking forward to it.

Fireworks have been in the spotlight publicly this year with not one but two public inquiries into their use both by consumer and professionals. The Scottish inquiry and the Westminster petitions committee inquiry have both finished taking evidence now. There are online records of all submissions to the inquiries which make very interesting reading - search for ‘Firework Inquiry Publications’ in Google and you should be able to find the information. It’s very interesting to see who has made a submission (and who hasn’t!)

Finally, I would like to share my sadness of the demise of Kimbolton Fireworks as we knew it. They were a firework manufacturer and display company who at their peak were truly awesome in the displays they could produce and some of the fireworks they manufactured. I know that difficult trading conditions hampered them from all sides. It’s a shame they’re not around now as they once were, good luck to those trying to keep part of the Kimbolton flame burning!

Have a safe summer and season!