The 2025 British Fireworks Championships from Plymouth UK on Thursday 14th August live from 9.00pm

Join us live from Plymouth, Britain’s Ocean City for the 2025 British Firework Championships “Champions of Champions”, in partnership with Associated British Ports, on Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th August 2025. Erin Black and Andy Hubble will present this year’s live global coverage on YouTube each evening from 9pm.

Six previous winners will showcase their very best work and battle to be crowned Champion of Champions, each putting on an extra special ten-minute display guaranteed to leave you awestruck! Three companies will be competing each night at 9.30pm, 9.50pm and 10.10pm for the coveted title of British Fireworks Championships “Champions of Champion” 2025.

Wednesday 13 August
1. Sonic Fireworks, from Devon
2. Skyburst the Firework Co. from Bristol
3. BBB Fireworks, from East Sussex

Thursday 14 August
1. Selstar Fireworks, from West Sussex
2. Fully Fused Fireworks, from Bedfordshire
3. 1st Galaxy Fireworks, from Nottingham

All right. Thank you. You guys like this? [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Let’s do it. Like they’re great. They actually This year, the British Fireworks Championships returns for a truly special edition, the Champion of Champions. Over two nights, the teams will be putting on six spectacular displays pushing the limits of creativity, passion, and sheer visual magic. From the first buzz to the final dazzling finale, the skies above Plymouth Sound will be filled with color, rhythm, and spectacular pyrochnic artistry. Who will rise above them to be crowned the ultimate winner, the champion of champions? The stage is set, the sky is ready, and you are watching. Get ready for the 2025 British Fireworks Championships. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Hello, good evening and welcome back to Plymouth. We are Britain’s Ocean City and we are also the hosts of the 2025 British Firework Championships. And this year it is a special one. It’s the Champion of Champions sponsored by Associated British Ports who are the UK’s largest port operator. They own and operate Plymouth Milbay Docks which is a key hub for Britany Feries. And as you may know, this is the 28th annual British Firework Championships here in Plymouth, 28 years, and it’s run in partnership with the Event Services Association and Plymouth City Council. Now, I’ve got to welcome you all again back, the tens of thousands of you here watching the event live on Plymouth Hoe and right across the waterfront. Good evening, everybody. How are we? Nice. And of course, we’ve got loads of you as well watching the online live stream right now, too. So, hello wherever you’re watching, whether it be Australia, South Africa, all across Europe, the United States, you’re all very welcome here. And we are so glad to have you tuning in to this very special event. And if you are joining us online, YouTube or Facebook, we would love to hear from you. So, don’t be afraid to drop us a message in the comments. Let us know how you’re enjoying the event and which one’s your favorite. Maybe we’ll have time to give you a shout out at some point during the show. Now, Plymouth City Bus are once again the sponsors of the British Firework Championships Young People’s Choice Award for the third year in a row, and it was great to see the children getting involved last year, and we hope they are enjoying judging everything just as much this year, too. We’re also delighted to have Jeremiah’s Journey as the event’s official charity. Jeremiah’s Journey is a local bereiement charity, and it’s dedicated to providing age appropriate therapeutic interventions to children, young people, and their families to ensure they have support during sad and difficult times. And as those of you who are here can see, we’re joined on stage by Jeremiah Bear, who’s been saying a big hello to everyone over the course of the evening. And we’re also joined on stage by Andy Hubble. He is back again the former chair of the British Pyrotenists Association and the managing director of Star Fireworks. So there is no one better to have on stage alongside me to guide you through the final night. I’m so glad we’ve had you here for two nights, Andy, because your expertise is unparalleled. We’ve already had three teams. We’re about to see three more. How have you been enjoying it so far? It looks so calm out there. If you look at the breakwater, Mount Baton breakwater is just silent. But we’re really going to burst it into life very soon. I’ve been out on the breakwater today. Yeah. And I have seen two really big displays. Display one tonight from Cellstar Fireworks and display three from First Galaxy Fireworks. They’re ones to look out for. And I can tell you that the bookie’s favorite, the bookie’s favorite has got to be display one tonight because cellstar have a lot of winning experience here. They are the reigning champion of champions. They won in 2019 and they’ve also competed two times previously that. So they’ve got so much experience out here firing at the British Fire Championships. Um, and they’ve got some really, really special effects, but it’s could be anybody’s. As you know, there’s so many things that can go wrong. They need their displays to run all the way through completely smoothly without any technical hitches, without any issues with the firing system. So, anybody could win. Anybody could have it. It’s no easy feat to pull something like this off. And of course, you’ve got six fantastic teams who are all very experienced. We’ll just have a reminder of the three that we saw yesterday. We started off the British Firework Championships with Sonic Fireworks. They’re from Devon. They won in 2022. They were followed by Skyburst, the firework company, who are a Bristolbased company, and our 2023 winners. And the finale for night one was BBB Fireworks, who are from East Sussex, and they won just 12 months ago. And then we move on to our three firework teams for this evening. We’re starting off Andy, as you’ve said, with Cellstar Fireworks. West Sussexbased company and the current reigning champion of champions. So that’s certainly going to be one to look out for. Fully Fused Fireworks are firing second tonight. They’re from Bedfordshire. And last, but certainly not least, first Galaxy Fireworks winners in 2019, and they are from Nottingham. Shall we, just before we get into what’s happening tonight, take a little look back at what happened on night one. Yeah, absolutely. We saw some really beautiful displays. This first one from Sonic Firework. Look at that blue with red and gold strobe and a bit of crackle. And these here, crackling shells which are filling the sky. and blue shells there with a crackling pistol. These are some of the highlights that we picked out from each of the shows. A lot of red and green strobes. So, the strobe is the flashing effect. And we’re going to see a lot of that. And one of the things that some of the teams last night did really well is they used some Italian multi flash uh shells just like this. Yeah. Um which were filling the sky with tens and hundreds of thousands of little flashing stars. There’s a shell with strobe in the middle and strobe on the outside. Can you see it there? It’s got a lovely twinkling middle and center. I think we’re going to see quite a few of these again tonight. They’re very popular in the UK. And here I think we go into Oh, I do remember this. This was a gold strobe uh waterfall with a pink strobe waterfall. They were really quite beautiful. And if you remember, those were really bright and the colors were really vivid and a big kind of brocadey uh effect in the sky. And then I think those blues are stunning. They were, weren’t they? They were really bright. And tonight when we watch the competition, we’ll see the difference in colors. You’ll see pale reds and more like pinks and then you’ll see like some of the deep reds, blood red they call it in uh some of the countries or the deep blues. But here is Sonic’s finale, and this is a classic Brocade Crown finale. So, the Brocade Crown is the big golden trails in the sky. Some of the teams use them throughout their shows. Um, but they’re particularly good. And what’s that at the end there, Erin? What’s that? Whoa. Um, oh, no, you did tell me this. Oh, you know, brocade. You might have just missed it, actually, cuz I think you were looking at me, but it was silver multi flash. Silver multi flash. Yeah, there we go. And this is Skyburst, the firework company with some really big shells. And do you remember last night the crowd love the big shells? Well, and this was the team that had picked a lot of European shells, which you were saying are a bit richer in color. Yes. Yeah. And certainly uh you’ll be out more out of pocket if you have those in. They’re quite expensive. These are lovely golden brocade waterfall effects filling the sky. But do you remember that in this particular display there was one that was missed out that was a bit out of place. Come off to the right hand side multiolored there. Look, there we go. There it is. And it just stands out, doesn’t it? And you just think somebody’s plugged that in in the wrong place. So this the kind of thing that could lose a few marks potentially. The judges may score that down. I’m sure they noticed it as well. Um and here we’ve got lots of rings. Um we’ve got ringshells at the bottom. Can you see those rings at the bottom? And then we’ve got rings higher up. And those are some beautiful uh Europa, lovely Spanish shells that are happening there with the multicolors. And then there’s that multiolor waterfall. And perhaps that’s where this was meant to go. And is this where we had the Catherine wheels at the at the bottom as well? Yeah. And that was a big cheer, wasn’t it? To get those spinning. And I can tell you I was c chatting to people from the industry after the competition in the evening and they were all doing the same as us. Go on, go on, go on, keep spinning and they all did spin but there was a lot of smoke and we only saw the right hand one but it was a lovely touch. Who knows the judges may have really liked that effect. Uh and then this sky burst. We’ve got lovely blue and red ring effects and some swimming effects down below and some spinners and silver spinners and some noisy ones there. And this is the kind of faralus effect. Not strictly that one, but uh the it’s very similar. This is the the shapes that were the wiggling shapes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It’s it’s the um means butterfly. Um and yeah, it’s a lovely shape. I do. If you get a very high quality shell like that, then you will, you know, they look really, really nice. Um, and then up in the sky here, we’ve got green and lots of red lightning effects. Probably made in the UK, quite possibly. There is a company that makes the red lightning shells here. Uh, and then we’ve got big blue peie with a red strobe pistol going off a head and some ring shells. And there’s a heart. And Skyburst, he did the cat face. I was just gonna say something there looked a bit like an attempt at a smiley face. Well, we looked in the edit at this and we think we found it. There’s the cat face. Look, there’s the whiskers. There’s the whiskers. There’s the pointy ears. We found it. But like you were saying yesterday, fireworks like that are particularly tricky because you just don’t know which way they’re going to display as they get hurdled through the air. Yeah. They could go upside down and get grumpy face or something like that. Multicolor waterfalls. This is probably what was uh that one that we saw with the golden waterfalls. Probably meant to go in this section. Yes. But very very lovely. Really enjoyed this high quality show from Sky. Yeah. Particularly colorful display as well. And traditional elements with those wheels and and that kind of thing. I love um look at those um shells. You know, they’ve really looked high and low to get some of the best fireworks in their show here, and it really stands out beautifully. Um, quite a bit of smoke. It was all going off towards the barbin. Yes. Last night, you didn’t want to be down on the barbcin if you were watching last night. I think the wind might be uh a little bit more favorable this evening. We had Yeah, we got some shapes here. We had spirals there and some ring shapes. And this is BBB fireworks. They had some uh smiley face as well. These are jellyfish. You can see the jellyfish there. Uh lovely blue top and then gold gold parts coming out of the jellyfish. I know when we went to see these guys down on the breakwater, you said they were pretty much throwing the kitchen sink at it and it it showed, didn’t it? Yeah, absolutely. Um they probably had the most fireworks out there yesterday. That was my feeling just looking at that one. um doesn’t necessarily mean that if you’ve got the most fireworks that you’re the winner because it’s what those fireworks are and what you do with them there. That was a loud bang there. Remember that the bang, it’s the bright flash and we hear it a couple of seconds afterwards sometimes because of the delay, the time delay from the breakwater right the way over to us. And here is their finale. Lots of people did different finales. The these guys had a multicolor. There’s lots of different colors of shells bursting there. And then at the crucial time that they choose, they moved into the more traditional. And this is a titanium brocade. So much noise, wasn’t it? I remember them saying their finale would obliterate the sky and uh they they kind of hoped that it would, you know, the cameras wouldn’t be able to pick it up. And that almost was the case, wasn’t it, there? Yeah. And and choosing a different finale because the other two had gold. Yes. Yeah. It’s It’s really interesting how different people choose different things. We’re going to see three different finales tonight. And in fact, one of them’s got a surprise that we’ve been told to try and spot. So, we do like a quiz up here, don’t we? Oh, okay. All right. So, we can we can keep an eye on that one. But before we rewind to yesterday when we went and looked down at Mat, I just wanted to ask you, Andy, obviously, you have been in this industry for a really long time. Are you able to do you still get the wow factor when you’re watching or are you too busy concentrating and taking notes and dissecting it all? No, I still do get the uh the wow factor. I do really very much enjoy doing fireworks, but I tell you, we actually recently ventured off into something else as well. We we started my company, we started doing drone light shows. So So is that kind of the future? Is that where fireworks are going or combining the two? I think uh certainly I don’t think we’ll ever replace fireworks and I don’t want to ever replace fireworks, but drone light shows um we’ve our company is called Star Symphony Drone Shows are really very special, very colorful. There’s so much designing and things you can do and create pictures in the sky and messages and branding and things like that. So I like to see I like to put them with fireworks. Yeah. And and the two compl complement each other really really well. Oh wow. We’ll have to watch this space in the future then. But right now, of course, we are still very much firmly the British Firework Championships. So, we better go back and see how it all starts. We know what it looks like when it’s up in the sky, but some people may not know what it looks like behind the scenes before it’s all set off. So, Andy and I headed down to take a look yesterday. Andy, we are here on Mount Batton Breakwater this morning, hours away from the Champion of Champions at the British Firework Championships. And this is what it looks like before thousands of fireworks are set off. When did the guys get here this morning? How long do the preparations last? They started at 7:00 this morning and it’ll probably take them 12 hours. Some teams are really on it. Um, and they can be done sort of mid-afternoon. Some teams have less fireworks to set up. Some teams have more complex displays. So, it can vary and you can get to that crunch time which we’ve seen before in the competition where competitors are getting close to six, seven, eight o’clock in the evening and it ends up being all all hands on deck. Everybody puts in a hand because everybody wants to see the fireworks going off, real team spirit, everybody cooperating. But yeah, they’ll aim to have it by have it done by midafter afternoon if they can and maybe have a little bit of a relax before seeing what happens in the evening. We’ve got three teams firing on each night, six in total. So looking down, you know, the breakwater as we do now, it’s a little bit hard, I think, you know, on a layman’s eye to differentiate who is who. But for you looking at it, it’s it’s quite clear what each team are trying to set up and what they’re trying to achieve. Yeah, absolutely. You know, different teams will have a different strategy. They some teams may go for the sheer volume of fireworks and the number. Other teams may focus on having some really high class fireworks like European products which are a lot more expensive than the Chinese products that that a lot of teams will be using. Um so and and the thing for us looking when we do at setting these things up is trying to sort of see what their strategy is, how it might turn out on the night, but you never know. You could see a team like this one that really has thrown the kitchen sink at it and they’ve brought so many fireworks. Surprised there’s anything left in the country for tomorrow night. Yeah. Or you could have a team that’s got real technical and real precision. But we we don’t know until we start firing it. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of the shells themselves then, Andy, because they’ve got to be fired out of these tubes, which are all of various different sizes to accommodate the various different size shells we’ve got. And you’ve lucked out. This is one of the biggest ones we’re going to be seeing. Yeah, this is the biggest size that we have down here at Plymouth. And it’s because if it was to burst on the ground, the stars need to be able to fall short of any of the buildings or any of the fallout zone that’s built around to keep people safe. and 8 in shells like this one. And this is a lovely Spanish shell. Um a shell of shells with salute one time. If they were going to uh fire one of these, it’s probably a finale shell. It’s probably one that’s going to be really really special that we’ll see towards the end of the show. This is when we get that huge bang, like a big shower. Yeah, absolutely. But this one has got 1.6 six kilos of powder in it and just one firework going off and you look at I mean it’s about the same size as your head isn’t it you know it’s really big firework that was BBB who were firing third on night one and I have to say for me personally looking around some of the tubes some of the setups look a bit similar I’m not able to tell the difference but I know this is something we haven’t yet looked at which is for from Skyburst yeah these are Roman candles. Okay, so this is an actual Roman candle. These ones are made by a company called Europa, Spanish company. Um, these particular candles have whistles with silver tails. It’s a 45 mm size. It It’s a repeater if you like. So, it fires the same effect time after time. And this one in particular has 10 shots. And what we need to look out for with Roman candles is the quality of the candle. Because if you’ve got each of these tubes putting out 10 different shots, what you want is you want them to all fire simultaneously and keep firing simultaneously right from their first shot to their 10th. Okay. What you don’t want is for them to get the timing out and then having a bit of a starting good, nice and even going up, but then ending up with a mish mash. And what you expect with a a high quality product like this is that the timing should be good. You can look out for that tonight when these repeaters are going off. Let’s talk finalees then to wrap up. Everyone’s got their own style as we’ve seen from looking down, but we’re kind of used to seeing these huge brocade displays. Is there a shorefire way to guarantee a good finale? Or is there room for a bit of creativity? I think you want something that gets bigger and bigger and builds and really takes the audience with it. and then just fills the sky. Absolutely fill the sky with fireworks. And most of the teams will do that with uh a gold effect that we call brocade. We will see brocades throughout all six shows. I can guarantee it. They’ll add in noise and perhaps some flashing effects and perhaps a little bit of color. When my team did it all those years ago, we had brocade and blue, which look beautiful. Blue is a really hard color to make as well, isn’t it? It is. Absolutely is. Um you’ve but if you’ve got a good blue then use it. Absolutely. But we can have strobe and everything. It’s impossible to tell what they’re going to do from their brocade unless they tell us. And some of the teams have told us what they’re doing. So as each show goes through we can sort of preview what to look out for. But you’re saying the bigger the better for the finale is the way that these teams are going to want to win. The classic Plymouth Brocade finale has won for many teams over the years. So that would be I think I think it would be really tough to not choose that if I was competing. Well, there we have it. Months of preparation, hours of planning here on the breakwater, and it will all come to fruition over the next couple of nights. So join us for the British firework championships as they get ready to unfold. Yeah, there are some big shells out there over on the breakwater as we saw in that VT. Here’s another one here. That’s me holding the one that’s about the same size as my head. I’m pleased to say this one not the same size as my head, but it just goes to show the scale of the the explosives, the fireworks we’ve got out there. What’s this one, Andy? That is a 48 in shell. Okay, so that’s 4 foot across and that’s an absolutely massive one. You would have to be a really long distance away from that when it goes up. I don’t think we can quite fit that one in on the breakwater for health and safety reasons, can we? I’m sure it would be interesting to see it go off. Speaking of the breakwater, you of course it will be interesting for people to know there are moments where you look like you’re concentrating very hard. It’s because you’re wired in to your man over there on the breakwater. How how does that system work? Yeah, absolutely. As ever, uh we have our man Anthony Green out on the breakwater. He’s in amongst the teams and working alongside the adjudicator Charlotte Winship from the event services association and he’s given us all the updates and all the gossip so that we can know hear about what’s going on and I can tell you the latest update from Anthony is that the King’s Harour Master has given the green light for team one to go ahead. So, the King’s Hub Master and the team of water marshals and police, they give the green light to event control who gives the green light to uh Charlotte on the breakwater. Yeah, fabulous. Okay, it seems like it’s going to plan. Let’s hear from our first team then, Sellstar Fireworks, and we’ll talk about them afterwards. Here they are. Hi, I’m Steve Harriet from Salstar Fireworks. We are the defending champion of champions looking to retain our title. We have some outstanding effects from Italy, Spain, and China with some points to look out for. Smoke shells, some illuminating kaleidoscopes of color, and a finale which is illuminating. Keen to point out they are the reigning champion of champions and rightly so. You’d want to make sure everyone remembers that 30th anniversary this year. So again, another reason for them to put on a big show. Yeah, they have really gone to town with this one. They are trying to retain their title and uh you know they will be keeping fingers crossed that their show fires exactly to plan. Of course they are experts. They’ve worked internationally. They know how to put on a big display and that’s what they’ve done for us. There are 2,941 Q’s in this display. So one Q is one firing. Um but it could even there might be more than one firework attached to a queue. So that’s a lot for the firing system. There are 1,471 shells. So those are the big ballike fireworks like you were holding just then that fire up into the air and burst like a cannonball. There are 1,324 single shots. So those are the fireworks that we saw in the tubes in the little arrays that fan backwards and forwards. They’ve got barges, candles, and slices. But there’s some really interesting things here. All right. in this show. Um, first of all, they’re going to start with a technical sequence with colored single shots which are going to be creating kaleidoscope patterns. So, we all remember a kaleidoscope sometimes when we were a young child looking through that. So, they’re going to be making kaleidoscope patterns in the sky. They have a carpet of pastel flares on the water. Oh, wow. So, they’re going to be floating fireworks on the water. And for any uh firework geeks, apparently they have the last remaining leu new type color crosset shells in the country. So everybody will know that that is a beautiful cross pastel colored crosset style effect up in the sky. So we’ll look out for those. I’m sorry when you say last remaining as in once they go off this evening, we won’t nobody else has got them in their displays. That’s right. Lu is a really famous Chinese factory and they’re just not making them anymore. Oh wow. Okay. So, this could be, you know, a particularly oneoff. Yes. All right. And the thing that I think we should all look out for, colored smoke effects. Colored smoke effects. You think about that. Smoke is a nighttime thing. Uh, sorry. This is a nighttime show. How are we going to see the smoke? So, how are they going to light up the colored smoke? Normally, you wouldn’t see it. You’d need need to see colored smoke in the daylight. So, I think we need to look out very carefully and see how that works. I’m sure the people on the barbcin will be very interested to see how the color smoke’s going to work out after yesterday. Um and finally, um a sequence of layered red and white strobe. So those are the flashing stars replicating Smean’s tower which is the fantastic lighthouse that we have with us literally 100 yards over there on Plymouth. I like a little personal touch. That’s nice. Yes. So we got to look all out for all of those. But as I was saying, it requires everything to uh come together. They will have been designing this show. Selfstar is run by Steven Harriet and Ian Keatley. Uh Ian Keatley and Steven have actually both been designing the show as well. They have 15 crew out there putting this display together. And I have no doubt that they’ve gone right up to the uh maximum amount of powder that you can put in. If you remember, we have a minimum amount of powder, which is 400 kilos, and this is the amount of explosive powder contained within the fireworks. And we have a maximum amount, 550 kilos, and that keeps it all on an even keel. And as we’ll hear tonight, some teams go for the high end, some teams go lower down. Um, I’ve got no doubt that this team are uh pumping it with as much as they can, but it’s all checked by the adjudicator. There’s a technical assessor out there from the fireworks industry. Andy Goodwin is out there to making sure that uh um making sure that everything is done fairly correctly and safely. Yeah. But we’ve just been given the twominut warning. Oh, excellent. Okay. Should we have a little bit of a refresher then of the rules before we start? Because you mentioned, you know, all of the weights are being checked. The order displays have to be exactly 10 minutes or there’s a bit of deduction each way and there’s multiple different teams judging isn’t there? Yeah, absolutely. Uh they are timing them and we will see at the start of the display a red shell then an amber shell and then a green shell and the timing starts from the last from that green shell when it get when it fires until the last bit of firework on the display. That needs to be exactly 10 minutes. And if you go over by just, you know, a small number of seconds, then there can be penalties applied to it. Um, we’ve got a whole big panel of judges looking for all different things and they’re actually judging from Tinside Lido, um, watching across the water. I’ve been down there this afternoon. They’ve table set up with a white tablecloth and lots of seats. Um, and they are literally getting ready to do it. And so they’re out of the way of the smoke. Certainly last night um they were they got a very clear view as the best view that you could have. Um so great viewing location. Yeah. And that late judges of course are looking for things like rhythm, wow factor. Of course I suppose for anybody who is watching online at home. Maybe worth getting the stopwatch out seeing if you can time it exactly to 10 minutes and you may have a bit of an insight as to who may end up being the winner. I think we’re getting a bit closer now, Andy, aren’t we? More at 30 seconds away more or less. It’s got to be something like that, hasn’t it? And and actually I just remembered that they they do also have some custommade products that was made just for this competition in this show. So I think this is the one to watch, but just to remember that uh it could be anybody. But here’s the countdown. 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cellstar Fireworks. [Music] [Applause] [Music] start. Wow. [Music] Wow. [Music] Wow. Don’t know what that Thank you. Wow. Come back. Come on. Nice. Hallelujah. [Music] Heat. Heat. Hey, I’m down. A lot of power. Heat. Heat. Good job. That’s looking good. [Music] Wow. That’s it. Heat. Heat. Yes, it [Music] [Applause] Well, I think it’s safe to say that one felt quite special. There were certainly some whoops um from off and on stage. In fact, the I mean there were so many elements of that, but I think what was really nice is some of the bits that you pointed out. We were actually able to see particularly the smitten tower, the stacking of the the silver and the red, you know, all the way up. Lovely. That was breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking. That finale right at the end was just incredible, wasn’t it? We thought we thought that we weren’t going to see Sweden’s Tower and then suddenly there it was right in the last 15 seconds filling the sky. Look for the kaleidoscope coming up in this effect. We’re just going to watching the replay here. There it is. Look at the kaleidoscope shades. Fantastic. Absolutely incredible. Really, really strong start there to the competition tonight from Sales Star. We saw beautiful, awesome colors. We saw a load of European material. Um, very clean show, I thought. Um, it was very smooth. They didn’t have any problems. Everything was symmetrical, very balanced. And we’re really lucky that with the wind tonight because the smoke isn’t blowing towards the barbec. And very lucky for the people on the barbin. Absolutely. It’s now going out to uh sea multicolor waterfalls, um pastel pastel colors, silver swimming stars, which were really nice. A type that we’ve not seen yet in the competition. Lots of butterfly effects. I just wrote down in capital letters, extraordinary European material. much of it, if not all of it, I’m sure, but probably much of it from Europla fireworks, which is a Spanish brand of of firework. Um, there’s a beautiful And this this is the the fireworks down on the water as well that you mentioned, wasn’t it, Andy? Yeah, you’re right. Those are the pastel colors down on the water. And look at the waterfall colors. Um, shells, reds and blues, and then also multicolored. Really, really clever. Really beautiful. We haven’t seen We’ve seen a lot of single colors. We’ve seen flashing waterfalls, but it’s nice seeing the colors uh like this. And then a load of whistles. I imagine those were hums as well. Did you say you heard at one point some Hummers? I heard Hummers. I love a Hummer. I really do love a Hummer. Uh and I like a proper Hummer. And we heard them in two shows last night and we’ve now heard them in this show. I imagine the judges are probably uh very similar. Um, also we saw that colored smoke sequence. We did and that was very special. You didn’t know what to look for and actually you spotted it. Yeah. Well, I mean also luckily the weather conditions are almost perfect tonight. It didn’t end up blowing away. Um but the yeah the way they were able to execute that and I suppose one of the things that I’ve noticed is you know a lay person was how there was a lot going on down at the bottom of the breakwater that really complemented the shells that were being fired way up in the sky whether that be you know the the smoke or is it the pillar mines as well. Yeah the pillar mines I’ve just heard from Anthony Green on the breakwater that shell shellstar are very happy with the way that they show. Yeah. No, absolutely. I think you know when we saw the smokes, the way that they actually made the see the colored smokes, the red and the blue smoke was they had silver flashing behind it like we’ve talked about with the multi flash. And do you remember seeing those new color crossets? Yeah. So, these were the these were the really special ones, weren’t they? Yeah. The last remaining batch and uh they performed really really well towards the end of the show. The last few minutes of it lit up. Um, actually those floating ones that we saw on the water earlier were probably from the same factory as well, but they were all really uh really good. Uh, and we also saw some ghost shells as well. Ghost shells that create a pattern in the sky and the that that pattern kind of moves through the firework and then disappears. It’s very very clever, very difficult. It really takes a lot of time and effort to make each of those stars so that they work in time. Yeah. Well, I suppose when you think about it, a 10-minute display is quite a chunk of time. And to be able to execute a display that’s able to keep everybody’s attention and, you know, and then build into a finale so that you you keep the excitement level going up. They certainly did that here, didn’t they, with with their finale. Yeah, they did. It was just a wow moment. That was an absolute classic Plymouth finale. Probably one of the best that I’ve seen here for years that filled the sky so evenly with the golden brocade. Um, we all came away from uh we uh in fact I’ve just had another update. Yeah, I was going I can tell when you it’s almost like you go into a psychic trance when you get So remember last night we had one watercraft water vessel infiltrate the safety zone and that delayed the competition and whilst the police got them out. We’ve got two in there at the moment their lesson. The harbor master and the police are now escorting them out. So that delays us. They were armed. Team two, their spiring system was armed. They’re now on hold. So, does that mean they have to unarm their firing system when you have a situation like that? I think they just keep their finger away from the fire button. Yeah. Yes. It’s very sensible. I mean, especially when you look at some of the fireworks that we saw during that display, how far reaching they’re able to go. I know the 8 in shells are the largest that we can have here down on the breakwater, but god, they do go some distance when they’re done right. Yeah, they do. They do. They were travel. There’s the smokes there. Look at the red and the blue. And we’ve just gone back green in the harbor. So, we’re back on schedule. So, we should be able to launch on time, which is good. Fabulous. I think we are couple of minutes away still before we need to introduce the next team. So, we’re able just to keep looking at this more more colors. Um, and you were saying it’s a European fireworks that are really able to bring out a strong color, which is something that Celstar have used here. Yeah, absolutely. This is a really strong uh range of different colors. There we got magenta and fuchsia and orange there and lots of different colors down below. I do believe if I’m not mistaken as well were responsible for the opening display at the London Eye on Millennium Eve. So there obviously does seem to be uh a bit of a reason why they’ve been winning Champion of Champions events and being invited back to this one of course because there’s a bit of a history there of high quality performance. Yes, very much so. Very much so. Right, I think we should maybe start getting ready to introduce our second act of the evening, our second team. It’s a tough act to follow. Certainly, we have had a good start to night two. But up next for you all is Fully Fused Fireworks. Uh they are from Bedfordshire. Let’s hear from them first and then we’ll chat a bit more, Andy, about what we can expect. Hello, I’m Jack Cotm, the display manager for Fully Fused Fireworks. We’ve got a great show lined up for you tonight. Um, we focus quite a lot on variety and color. Uh, we’ve got all the crowd favorites in there, the brocades, kamoros, the white multif flash shells, but also we’ve got some uh more unique effects in there as well, such as the swimming star rings, uh, and butterfly shells. Um, so there’s something in there for for everybody really. Um, some of the fireworks are just from China, so we brought them in from other parts around the world, such as Italy. Um, and some of the white multifflast shells are are something to look out for tonight. There we go. That’s what they’re saying to look out for. You of course have been down and chatted to them, so you’ve probably got a little bit more intel that you can let everyone watching know what they should keep an eye out for. Yeah, they got a team of eight pyro technicians working on the show tonight. 1,076 cues. I think the last show had two and a quite a lot. I need to check. Was it 4,000 or something like that? Um, yeah. Uh, they have 810 shells and they have 402 kg or 402.88 kg of powder. So, this is a bit on the lighter side then compared to what we’ve just seen. And also 8 members as well compared to the 15 maximum that you’re allowed. So, maybe they’re going for quality over quantity perhaps. Yeah, the previous show was 2,900 cues. This is 1,076. Um, some of the stuff to look out for, purple and gold, Italian cumuro and violet and yellow glitter shells, which is the company logo. They’ve gone for colors from their logo. They got blue jellyfish and tangerine crossets. A multiolor sequence with swimming shells and golden rain with rainbow rings, which we can look out for. And then instant color tail to report cakes. So, these are going to be colored tails, perhaps red, green, and blue. And then they’re going to go bang. Um, and lots of bang. So, lots of noise in this one. And then some more sequences. A blue and gold sweet, a colorful butterfly, a white strobe, some mosaic waterfalls, which we’ll look out turquoise and lemon instant hit, and a finale of silver rain kimuro with red. But we’re in the countdown. 6 5 4 3 2 1. This is fully fused fireworks. [Music] Okay, I’ll just Oh my god. Can I Waiting. They’re watching it. I am [Music] What I I like I like that. Excuse me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Here we go. Thank you very much. Let’s go. Come on. Come on. I have no idea. I’m expecting too. Come [Applause] on. I thought I was firework. We can hear Wow. They are [Applause] [Music] Well, Andy, a little bit more calm, relaxed that one, but another lovely finale. another another great show there tonight. Um they have uh Jack has done a great job designing that show. I know Cliff Stone Street, managing director of Fully Fused very well. I’m not sure that we saw the winning show though. No. Um, no. The uh I mean the show before compared to that one, the amount of European product that was in the show, um, there was, you know, quite no lots of really really strong aspects in this display, but also there were they had a few problems. They had a few, uh, fireworks firing quite low and they also had fireworks firing straight across the breakwater. I don’t know if you noticed that. Yeah, we saw a couple going, you know, right into the water, which is such a shame. And this is one of those things you say, you just you can’t account for it. If it happens, it happens. You you can’t factor that into your designing of the show and the preparations. And they’re currently dealing with a fire out on the breakwater at the moment. And we did say that we’d saw some smoke coming from team 3’s firing site. So, so could that be a case of team two, one of their fireworks that we can see here is maybe gone off of an angle that it shouldn’t have. It could have hit something on team 3’s display and caused it to set a light. Is that Yeah, the the problem that team 2 had is they had some fireworks on the right hand side that seemed to be firing sideways rather than up into the air. That was firing towards team 3’s site. Um we also saw there were some quite low brakes on a few of the shells that were happening. But overall, you know, the whole display was really good. Let’s talk about some of the uh really what did what were the the you know talking points that you saw. Okay. So, we we did see that purple and gold sequence which is really nice in the fully fused uh colors. We saw blue jellyfish and do you remember the tangerine crossets? I do remember that was near the beginning, wasn’t it? Yeah, we saw turquoise and orange waterfalls and they were a different kind of orange, you know, to the tangerine. So, that was really nice. Different colors um there. Uh sequences of shells. We saw them beautifully firing left to right, right to left. I mean, you could see that pattern going backwards and forwards and and will that pay off with the judges, you know, trying to plan something like that? Does that fall into, you know, the rhythm category? Yeah, it absolutely does. The this the it’s the rhythm and the synchronization and the timing will all factor into that. Um, they had some very big shells as well. Uh, there was a turquoise ring with a beautiful red strobe pistol. That turquoise was a lovely turquoise. The red was really good. Um, uh, they had some ghost shells. Did you see the big ghost shell? Yes. Because I mean, why is it called a ghost shell? Is it the way that it splits apart like that? So, it bursts open like a a normal shell bursting, but then it has different timing on all of the actual stars. They’re made individually by hand and and it makes a pattern ripple across the shell and backwards and forwards. And it, you know, when you see one, you look, wow. And look at it. It’s really clever, but very hard to make. I’ve seen them being made in Japan. Yeah. And it’s a master crafts level of firework manufacturer that uh we saw brocade shells with a ring of multiolor stars. That was really nice. We all said wow when that went off. That was lovely. Um we had golden blue and a big silver and red finale at the end. Um but also it has to be said and I think we did see this while we did say this while we’re watching it that some of the shells were a lot more basic. Um some of the ring shapes they had a ring shell sequence. Some of the teams have used some really quite exquisite ring shells in this whereas the shells ring shells that we saw in fully fused display were a little bit more standard um run-of-the-mill kind of products. But it’s still a very big display and Jack and his team of eight have done really well to put that together today. They actually had all had a bit of rain this morning for 30 minutes. Yeah, around about 8:00 which is a really bad time. You’re just getting all the equipment and the fireworks out and you’re having to deal with a bit of rain. So that was kind of like a bit of a a wild card that they had compared to yesterday’s teams. How much does that hamper the preparation process then? A bit of rain. Does it mean you have to stop preparations completely cover all the fireworks? It will it can delay things. It can cause a bit of a problem. It very much depends on how long it’s going on for. Um they will look at rainfall radar in today’s modern times and just be able to see how long that rain is going to go ahead. The fire is now out. I was going to say I could see you were getting sent messages criminally or or otherwise. So, the fire is out, which is Yeah, the fire is out and also we’ve had a green light for the King’s Harour Master. We are clear of all the boats. Um, isn’t this just such a fantastic location for a fireworks competition? We’ve got the natural amphitheater. Um, with so many boats all around. I did want to ask, how does Plymouth Sound play into, you know, how does it affect the sound and the the vision that we see here compared to firework events in other parts of the country, in the world? This is the best place in my view because we’ve got land all around here and everything echoes off and people can watch from the sidelines and everything. Over 9 million brought into the local economy through publicity and also people coming to the Plymouth hotels and restaurants to come and watch the firework championships. Yeah, I think it’s the very best location. There are other competitions around the world but Plymouth is the number one for me. Yeah. Well, there’s certainly a reason that it has been host the British firework championships have been hosted here since 1997. You you can see why. Um, I tell you another fun fact that I learned the other day which had always was always something that I’d been wondering like the environmental impact of fireworks. And I I read a sustainability report by I think is it Celtic firework company who was saying uh one display here in Plymouth is the equivalent of one seat on a London to New York flight which actually you I don’t know. I just always thought with the explosions and the smoke and everything like that, it would be a lot more. But I know there’s a real push to make firework displays more environmentally friendly year on year, isn’t there? With this being the Ocean City, we have really strict rules about use of plastics in the displays so that we’re not putting anything back into the sea or into the environment. But you’re absolutely right for an event like this and let’s face it, this could be a British Grand Prix, this this could be racing, this could be anything or a big concert on the on the hoe. But for an event like this, it’s the attendance of people coming to it that it has the environmental impact compared to the fireworks which are very much a dot in the ocean. Well, it’s certainly a crowd-pleaser and we have got another crowd-pleaser for you. It will be our final display of tonight and the whole competition. It’s first Galaxy Fireworks. Let’s hear from them about what you can expect. Hi, Neil from Galaxy Fireworks. Winners in 2019 and back here today to put on a really good show for you guys. We’re going to start with a a nice punchy Italian section and then we’re going to go into a a high impact rhythm display. We’ve got a nice section of strobe color waterfall shells included in there and a really loud finish. So, hope you guys enjoy enjoy the show. Thank you. Well, they are from Nottingham as they said, 2019 winners there. Um, founded back in 1985 and they do over 400 displays annually. So, again, just one of many that they’re putting on, but I think they are really gonna kick this one out, aren’t they, at the end of the night? Yeah, we’ve we’ve had the uh an update from Anthony Green on the breakwater. We’re into the twominut countdown at the moment, but yeah, they’ve got 15 crew over there over,300 singleshot fireworks. They are starting with some punchy Sanio mines in lemon and siren. And this is this is the Italian section. Yeah, absolutely. They got pastel crosset section, a feeling of finesse and timing is what they told me. Um some Italian vacuo multi- brake uh cylinder shells fastpace crackle multilayer section strobe waterfall sequence in five different colored strobes and that falls slowly almost to the ground and the finale is brocade with a twist. All right, we like a twist. I don’t know what the twist is, but we’re going to have a look. We have to look out for that brocade, the classic Plymouth Brocade finale and just find out what that twist is going to be. Well, it won’t be very long until we find out, is it? We are rapidly approaching the countdown timer. Now, I do have to say for everyone that’s watching here live on the home, the Britany Ferry is just going past. So, I mean, imagine that for best seat in the house. Did you go past the firework display? Yeah, absolutely. I think when I went out there earlier, I saw the two uh shows and there were two large shows. This is a big one. That first one once, but we’re in the countdown. Six, five, five, four, three, two, one. This is first galaxy fireworks. Wow. Jesus. Go money. hours. So I came here two years ago. Number [Music] three should win. Yeah, I like it. [Music] Can I ask? Woo! Yeah, I like this one. Very good. Very good. You like that, didn’t you? So money going up. Hey A lot of power. Yeah, I know. Yeah, computer. Yeah. Yeah. How are you? [Music] What the [Music] heat? Sorry. Never [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Well, there we go. It’s all over. All six teams have fired. Our final one. First Galaxy fireworks. You said there would be a finale with a twist. And the twist was Well, we had the brocade, didn’t we? We had the big golden trails and it looked like red, white, and blue to me. Red and silver strobe with blue stars. Absolutely filled the sky. And then they had the noise at the end. Lots of bangs. And then did you see the flashes along the uh railing down at ground level? Really making the loudest noise that we can make here at the competition. Yeah, certainly emphasizing, you know, like you were saying earlier, the use of the soundsscape here in Plymouth Sound, making the most of it with those bangs there. And they were also implementing elements that were all operating at quite a low level. You know, we’re used to seeing uh shells up in the sky as well as down low. And there was a nice section later on to the middle where it all just happened quite near the water. Yeah. So, we can see here lots of color comets and the pace they do. They use speed here and they used it a few times in their display. Uh and and they you things got faster and faster as they went through. Just before that, we had the lemon and the sirens. And here’s a little bit uneven. Can you see the shell firing off on the right, but nothing on the left? So, do you think this may have had something to do with the fire that was down on the right water earlier? Yes. Yes, it possibly could have been. We noticed a couple of points during this display where there were little things. It didn’t look like perhaps every ground site was firing at all times. Just on rare occasions and like we had these shells firing on the right. That can be due to a number of different reasons. It could be that a fireworks not being plugged in correctly. It could be that an igniter is faulty. It could be that another competitor has fired their firework mistake. We’ve had that in the competition. It could be a firing system issue. We don’t really know. All of the teams tonight are using different firing systems. Team one, Cellstar, used Cobra, Fully Fused. Uh, team two used the Fire One firing system. And this team that we’ve just seen, First Galaxy, they’ve used the MLE fire byWire firing system. Okay. I’ve heard of Cobra before. I think we had a team using that yesterday. And also the the second team were using a similar firing system to someone yesterday as well. Is that right? Yeah, Cobra is really uh really good system. It uses wireless frequencies, so there’s no cables to uh put out and all of the uh units communicate with each other. So, there’s a bit of a chain. Look at those sequencing backwards and forwards. And then a big shell with a tail going high up there into the uh sky. Um we got red and green show shells. There was a very intense single shell partway through, but also do you remember the five different colored strobe waterfalls that we saw? Um, we had lots we had some bright colors did we have in that? Say again. The f Did you say five colors? Yeah, there were five. Four of them were strobing. One of them wasn’t. Yes, of course. It was the blue one on the stroing. Yes. Yeah, that’s it. Um, and then we also had a red strobe waterfall and green falling lease sequence. Uh, gold comet and waterfall sequence which is really delicate and really beautiful. They they executed that extremely well. Silver strobe and red. And then the fantastic brocade crown and red, white, and blue with all those salute sequences. There’s a nice ring shell. It’s very interesting to see how each team approaches and the different kinds of fireworks. We’ve seen lots of ring shells, for example. There’s a little ring pistol. We call the pistol being the center. I mean, that those that red and blue shells were kind of almost going off like flowers. Look at some of the low bursts that we saw in this display. And actually some of the styles were coming right down to water level. Yeah, I think that that’s an area that certainly caught my attention with this one. And this this display of course will be, you know, the parting vision of the 2025 British Firework Championships. I wanted to ask you, is there much of an advantage to being the last team to fire at a competition like this? Uh, no. The simple answer to that is no. There is a very strict judging regime. Jim Winship from the event services association who are running the competition. Jim is overseeing the judging panel who are over at Tinside Lido. Um, and it’s a fair system, but you know what, Erin, there’s certainly a psychological advantage of being the last team to fire on the second night. Yeah, I imagine it must feel quite good when you Well, how is how are they drawn? How how is the order selected? They’re drawn by the judge. Sorry, not by the judge. By the mayor. um they’re drawn by the mayor uh and filmed out of a hat. It’s filmed just so that everybody can see that it’s done fairly. And also the firing order is also drawn as well at the same time, but the firing order is kept secret for a short while because we don’t want teams to think that they’ve got a competitive advantage by being the last one to fire. So, they really have to create their shows and submit them before they know where they’re going to fire. Oh, I see. I I do want to ask now that we have seen all the the displays and of course for everybody who is watching at home, do let us know in the comments which one was your favorite, whether it was one to six, of course, if you saw the three yesterday as well. We would love to see that. But Andy, do you have a favorite or do you have to keep your cards close to your chest until the winner is announced? I do normally keep my cards close to my chest. I always haven’t done in previous years, but I think there was one display that really stood out. Okay, you’re not going to say who it is. What do you think? I I think I would be inclined to agree with you. I think I know who my favorite is, but I suppose we probably should say impartial until the winner is announced. Um and and it won’t be very long until that happens. But that is it from us here on the stage on Plymouth Home. Six teams, six spectacular displays. Only one of them, of course, can win. And we do have to get off the stage so we can go and find out the winner. So before that, we just need to say a big thank you to everyone that has been part of this. Thank you to our sponsors and our partners. Thank you to everyone here who’s been watching, everyone at home, of course, our fantastic BSL interpreters on stage and the crew, and of course Andy, a huge thank you to you for all of your expertise. I hope you have enjoyed it once again. Absolutely pleasure. Always always fun. Best fireworks competition in the country. Excellent. Well, there will be a lot of nervous teams down on the breakwater right now and they’ll be eager to find out who the champion of champions is, as will you. You can find out tomorrow at 1000 a.m. It will be announced to the public. So, do keep your eyes peeled for that. Again, thank you so much for joining us and we’ll see you again soon. Good night. [Music] [Music] Heat up here. Heat. [Applause] Heat.