So good it was excellent

31 Aug 08 1.04am
Not my words but those of Jon Weaver, head of events for Bournemouth Tourism. We'd just been watching the curtain-raiser to the town's first ever Air Show along with what Jon estimated to be the biggest audience he'd ever seen there for a fireworks display. 'It's given us a brilliant start to the Air Show,' said Jon. A beautiful summer's day helped swell the numbers and a clear sky and calm waters meant perfect firing conditions for our team out on the barge. After getting back to shore in the early hours they will be taking a well-earned rest before hitting the road again for another round of displays tonight.

Trains & boats & planes

30 Aug 08, 1.21pm
The Fantastic Fireworks road show boards trains & boats & planes this weekend as it heads into Europe. Ali & Steve are off to Greece & Italy for two big celebrations, one for a birthday party on an Aegean island, the other for a wedding at a castle near Florence. Meanwhile our King of the Road Paul Roberts is back in action for a double header. Paul & his team are in Bournemouth for tonight's Air Show display, then they head up to East London for an open air concert tomorrow. Having survived stormy weather on their bobbling barge in Bournemouth earlier this month, the forecast of thunderstorms tomorrow hold no fears for Paul. At least he will be back on dry land!

Busy busy busy

29 Aug 2008 2:58pm
On this date 42 years ago The Beatles gave their last live concert performance to a crowd of about 25,000. 42 years on and the FF team are completing yet another busy week. Another weekend full of shows is ahead of us and armed with my camera, I will be going along to see two of them.

They were seven and they fused like seven hundred.

28th Aug, 8.48am
Today is a very special day here at Rocket Park. Today sees the first working day of the all new and improved Site Team, Seven men on a serious mission. For the next 2mths the Magnificent Seven will most certainly be riding again as they work day and night to fuse all the displays in time for the big day!

Next week I will be naming each member of the Team. I have already decided that I am Chris Adams.

Jackie keeps her troops topped up!

27th Aug 08, 00.018
The sight & smell of sausages & burgers sizzling away was almost enough to make me cancel my dinner reservation. Dropping in on the Fantastic Fireworks team in Torquay I discovered a scene of domestic bliss which Napoleon would have been proud of. For there was our senior firer Tony Smith's wife Jackie taking a leaf out of the French general's cook book! Just as Napoleon knew his army marched on its stomach, Jackie was busy serving up a treat for Tony, Paul and the rest of the Torbay Regatta firing team. The show was pretty tasty too, producing great crowd reaction and some good photos (see facebook).

Another Quick Response Saves The Day

26 Aug 08 15.48
Following a super quick response to the call of the Brynfest organisers last week, Dave and I found ourselves on site on Saturday night enjoying the opera when in comes the call "Can you stay till Monday and do another show for BBC Wales?". "'Course we can!" we said, and what should have been a relatively quiet weekend turned into quite a mission, though I must say a very succesful one. Tuesday therefore sees the Manchester office looking more like a dormouses hibernation chamber following a 4am arrival home last night. So please, please, please, if you must ring please do it quietly!!. Bank Holiday weelends. We love them......

Steve sees the future and it's gold

25 Aug 08, 7.45am
It's great to have ambition and a vision of where you want to be. I was talking to our display director Steve Boothman about last night's amazing Olympic fireworks finale off the top of the Birds Nest in Beijing. 'That's where I want to be in 2012' said Steve, 'on the roof of the Olympic stadium in London.' That should give us all of us here at Fantastic Fireworks food for thought in the coming months. Steve has already demonstrated our ability to stage an international event with last year's Liverpool 800 display. London 2012 is now in our sights. Just as there are young Olympians out there dreaming of glory in 2012, so are we.

We do like to be beside the seaside

24 Aug 08, 9.15am
Another wet Sunday morning & I'm off to the seaside. Well if it wasn't raining it wouldn't be August. I'm heading West to catch up with our intrepid team. From Bournemouth on Friday night, they moved to Fowey for last night's regatta. Tomorrow night they're in Torbay where Paul, Tony & team are planning to rock the regatta. Watch the blog for photos and reports.

Greetings from across the Pond!

Hello folks,

Greetings from Fantastic Fireworks NORTH AMERICA, alias Fireworks FX. This is my first contribution to the blog, hopefully one of many.

It's been a busy season here in Canada, which starts in June and runs through to early September. It's apparent that we will need to order another container of mortars from China this winter and make up some more racks to hold them, equipment is always a problem during the season, no matter how much we buy we never seem to have enough.

We just finished kitting up a utility trailer to act as a travelling showcase for consumer fireworks, one of everything and a computer and monitor to play video clips, very nice. We're hoping it will produce big results in the sales department.

Looking forward to my return visit to Pepperstock this Oct/Nov to help out on a few shows, everyone was so nice to me last time.

Here's an open invitation to anyone on the FF team to visit us here in Nova Scotia at any time, we always look forward to visits with a lobster and a bottle of NS wine, lovely!

Cheers,

Fred

It's a Bang Holiday for Paul!

23 Aug 08 8.35am
The Bank Holiday weekend started with a bang last night. In the first of a busy weekend of displays for Fantastic Fireworks, Paul Roberts and his team completed another successful show in Bournemouth's summer season. 'The organisers radioed me to say they were absolutely over the moon with it' Paul told us from the barge ferrying the crew back to the harbour late last night. We're back in Bournemouth for an even bigger bang next Saturday when Paul & his team return for the town's Air Show finale. Well done to Paul, Dick & Jules who've suffered everything from seasickness, gales and lashing rain to sunburn on this 4-week tour of duty.

Royal Mail standstill at Rocket Park

22 Aug 2008 12:10
The Royal Mail has been kind enough to let us look after one of their vans since yesterday morning. After the breakdown our postman had to be rescued by a fellow colleague and left the van stranded at Rocket Park. There it sat until late this morning, so if you were wondering where your post got to yesterday you now know.

The rapid reaction team!

21 Aug 08, 2.25pm
When you get the call you have to be ready to go. So when Steve in our Manchester office had the Brynfest team on the phone today asking for two displays in North Wales this weekend, he put our rapid reaction plan into action. As you read this (Thursday afternoon) Paul & the Rocket Park crew are busy packing the van. Charlie, our Roy Orbison-loving 'I drove all night' driver, will then head North to deliver the shows which Steve & team will shoot on Saturday & Sunday. It's not quite as short notice as the MTV prize winner who once called us for a same-day dsiplay with the £10,000 he had to spend in 24 hours! We managed that too.

Kate & Emma will soothe our pain

20th Aug 08, 5.17pm
Bad backs are part and parcel of the fireworks industry (it's lifting all those heavy suitcases of money people insist on paying us with!) But now relief is here. We are proud to have not one but two physiotherapists in FF's extended family, both with healing hands at the ready. Kate Robertson, daughter of our display manager Ali, is already an experienced physio and she is now joined by Emma Horncastle, daughter of our Accounts Manager Annie. Emma has just graduated with a 1st from Coventry University and is ready to step into the big bad world of slipped discs, tennis elbows and sprained ankles! Congratulations from all of us, Emma. Ouch! I think I've just pulled a muscle.

Everything's coming up tomatoes

19 Aug 08, 3.15pm
Well done to Tony Smith & Team for a great show down in Fowey. We'll be lighting up the skies of the south coast this weekend with Displays for summer carnivals and regattas. Off now to water the tomatoes, the Markyate sunshine has done me proud with a bumper crop. If you pass by the office feel free to call in for a taster!

Caracus calling...

Hello to all at FF,
Great to hear you have new and exciting members. Things seem to be going from strength to strength; hope this continues (not the weather from the sound of things) right throught the season.
Been having a great time, won't rub it in, just waiting the arrival of the wife today!
Keep well, H.
ps Ali, no luck on the phone covers not given up though...

Display stops rain

18 Aug 08, 10.05am
Another wet Monday morning but it's blue skies and green lights here at Rocket Park. Paul & his team excelled themselves with the best display yet at our summer season in Bournemouth. We're also delighted to welcome some new faces to the FF team, including Craig Murphy who joins us all the way from Sydney, Australia. Craig is a very experienced pyrotechnician who has worked on several of Sydney's amazing New Year's Eve firework displays. Also on the team prepping our shows this season is Toby Ascroft. Toby makes regular headlines in our local papers for his cricketing heroics playing for Redbourn. What with him and Craig (and we're assuming that as an Aussie he also wields a nifty bat) FF will soon be able to field its own fearsome cricket team.

We love this fizzing tale of love & romance!

16 Aug 11.30pm
Just had a wonderful email from our favourite author Christina Jones. Her latest romantic comedy Heaven Sent, whose heroine is crazy about fireworks, was shortlisted for an award and recently featured on breakfast tv. Fantastic Fireworks even gets a credit for supplying background info. Christina, who was born on November 5th, tells us: 'Many thanks for all the good wishes. Well, my fictional pyro crew didn't win the BIGGIE at the Tesco/MN Comedy Romance Awards BUT it did get a category award for characterization (presented by Jo Brand, excerpt brilliantly read out by Lisa Tarbuck) - and I appeared on breakfast telly in my posh frock - so I was chuffed to bits!!!! Thanks so much for all your help. Love, Chris.'

Chris, we're delighted to hear about your success and wish you more of the same in the future. If you have any more gunpowder plots we'll be only too pleased to keep you posted on anything new that makes the earth move!

TGIF

15 Aug 08
Friday morning is shaping up well here at Rocket Park with blue skies and sunshine. If it stays like this I shall look forward to my drive down to Heston this afternoon, delivering fireworks for one of our shows next week. With another busy week completed I shall enjoy the weekend seeing friends in Kent. Postponing my car restoration project for yet another week!

There is no "I" in Team

21 Aug 08. 10.00am
It's Thursday and the sun has returned to the skies over Rocket Park. It has been a very busy week so far and one which I am personally very proud of. This week the team smashed the FF container unloading record by unloading a 40ft High Cube in the superhuman time of 1hr 40mins.

On a personal note I have 2 days left at work before I take my annual leave and I am looking forward to some down time before we start our prep work for the season.

New champions take a bow

13 Aug 08 11.55pm
Our warmest congratulations to Pendragon Fireworks, newly crowned winners of this year's British Fireworks Championship. Pendragon took the title in Plymouth tonight with the last display of the two-day final. Six companies took part and had to battle stormforce winds and driving rain to get their shows set up. The skies cleared on both evenings and thousands of firework fans gathered on Plymouth Hoe for the annual spectacular.

A day in the life of the FF Office

Another lovely summers day in Pepperstock (not) but surrounded by the cheery faces of my FF colleagues and the upbeat tunes from Ali's computer as she works on her leatest design.....who needs sunshine! Preparation is well under way for a busy month of training courses in September and due to popular demand a new date has been added for Category 4 on 18/19 October just in time for the season!

Latest result: Weather 0 FF 4

11 Aug 08 12.33pm
The August weather is giving us plenty of waterproofing practice. Luckily most of the teams dodged the downpours at the weekend to delight audiences as far afield as Lyme Regis and Lichfield. A big thanks to Ben for a double header at Drayton Manor Park and to Tony, Andrew & Brian who headed up our other teams.

A bigger bang in Bournemouth

09 Aug 08. 8.42am.
Great to see the pyro papparazzi already uploading our Bournemouth displays on YouTube, facebook & flickr. No need for seasick pills last night. The water was calm and Paul & the team had the bonus of a bigger barge to bang up another top show. Well done to all!

Bon Voyage to the Pyros of the Caribbean (aka Bournemouth Bay)

08 Aug 08, 12.25pm
Good luck to Paul & the crew for tonight's show in Bournemouth. After last week's roller-coaster waves they've stocked up on seasick pills. But it's the lucky day 080808 and the sea is promising to lay on a friendly welcome (well that's what it said at the weather centre). If you'd like to join us in wishing Paul, Dick & Jules bon voyage on the JML60 barge off Bournemouth pier, text a message to the Steve Wright or Chris Evans Shows on Radio 2 today (txt to 88291).

Looking smart means cutting it fine

07 Aug 08 11.59am
The sound of grass-cutters and hedge-trimmers can be heard reverberating around Rocket Park as we make the site & garden a contender for the imaginary Best Kept Village (Firework Factories section) competition. Even if we don't win it's nice to see the place looking so spick and span for our visitors.

Lending a hand in Sri Lanka

06 Aug 08. 12.36pm
Just had a message from Chris in Sri Lanka. He's on a Rotary project helping to equip schools with computer equipment. It's been a very rewarding experience, and hopefully it has helped the kids too, but soon it will be time to return to the UK. Tell us more about your experiences,Chris, & we'll look forward to seeing you back here at FF in the autumn.

Happy Holidays & Wet Weekends

05 Aug 08. 10.47pm.
Steve has chosen the perfect hideaway on the Cumbrian coast for a quiet family holiday - no mobile phone reception! While he takes a well-earned break our firing teams are also heading to the seaside. A summer season in Bournemouth plus regatta shows in Devon & Cornwall add up to one of our busiest months. Here's hoping they enjoy better weather than last Friday's wet and windy show opener in Bournemouth!

The shows goes on as Paul & Dick duck the waves

It was touch and go in windswept Bournemouth but our intrepid team were determined the show must go on. With a heavy swell and high winds, the first of our Friday night displays was almost called off. But such was the professionalism of our senior firer Paul Roberts & his assistants Dick Budgen & Jules Gibson that they got 100% of the show in the sky for a grateful audience. 'The boat was rocking so much that the kit slid across the deck, but we fired it all the same,' said a relieved Paul. A big well done to both and here's hoping for better weather next week.