Building a great show means piecing together music, effects and different types of fireworks shells so that everything ends or begins at roughly the same time and comes together as an experience!

To design a great show you need to think about both the visual side and any music you want to use. Who is the show for? If you’re doing it for the family — get them involved by asking what music they want and which fireworks shells they like. Watch videos of the different products together and make it a fun shared activity!

Find out how long the duration of different fireworks shells is and what kinds of effects they have. The idea of building a show is to fire shells one after another so that they somehow match the music. Generally a show ends with a finale — meaning many larger shells fired at once so that the effect builds to a peak.

Tips:

• You should know the duration of your shells and what effects each one contains. Plan the firing order in relation to the music.
• Do not rely entirely on the stated durations — for cakes in particular, these are only approximate.
• Don’t be afraid to use ground effects such as fountains or Bengal fires. They work well at the beginning or in quieter parts of the music, and they have a long burn time.

The safety fuse burn time

Bear in mind that the green safety fuse burns for approximately seven seconds before the shell starts to function. This means you need to light the next shell seven seconds before the previous one finishes in order for them to follow on from each other immediately.

This is not always easy to pull off in practice! It is therefore best to have something going on between the main shells in your show so that no gaps appear.

Plan the firing order and the grouping of shells, so that you can always stand and wait in a safe spot and light the next shell while another is firing.

If it gets tricky, add in some small shells with short safety distances — such as Roman candles or fountains — so that something is happening and can conceal the fact that you perhaps lit a large shell a little too late.

But I won’t get to watch the show myself!

If you are firing a show yourself you won’t get to watch it — but instead you get to enjoy a grateful audience cheering over your fireworks! The fun lies in the planning, in learning more from year to year — and perhaps becoming known as the local fireworks legend?!

You can also involve others in firing according to your plan, if you sometimes want to sit back and enjoy a show yourself.