Epic Fireworks Blog

Archive for the ‘Epic Fireworks China Trip 2012’ Category

Jimmy, the owner and MD of Jimmy’s Fireworks, home of Epic is back in town.

He has just returned from a 3-week trip to China (the third of the year so far) to check on the progress of our replacement stock and to ensure that the new products reach our exacting standards.

Jimmy checks on the progress of production to ensure quality is maintained at all times.

At random, Jimmy will check that the effects are as requested, the timings are spot on (particularly important to our customers who want to ensure that the product does what it says on the packaging in the timescales detailed) and ensuring that the colours are clear, strong and meet our requirements. Most importantly, he checks that the British Safety standards are met at all times.

We are delighted to report that a number of the items we are to bring in this year are actually even better than the ‘tester’ created back in March so we are duly exited to see the end products and gain feedback from customers as to how they feel.

Check out the new ‘Moving Target’ a 105 shot fan barrage with some stunning colours (blue, green, red, orange and pinks) and of course, great timing. This is likely to be one of our biggest sellers this season. Check it out:

Also, one of my personal favourites, Dragon Warrior with superb silver tails and coloured breaks, this is a must for any self-respecting Bonfire Night display

SERIES 1 – EPISODE 10 – VISITING BROTHERS PYROTECHNICS HEAD OFFICE IN BEIHAI. 
DATE – MONDAY 27TH FEBRUARY 2012

Following on from episode 9, we got up early, had an English style breakfast again and made our way to the firework factory to discuss last nights firework demo.

We got to the factory around 1000 and discussed the products we liked and didn’t liked, watched some of the videos from the demo, weighed some of the fireworks to ensure they weren’t over the 10kg limit, selected some items to see again, played around with the packing and negotiated hard on price……we were getting closer to confirming the order for 2012

We left the factory around 1300 and headed off back to the hotel for a bite to eat. After lunch we headed off to see Brothers Pyrotechnics. We arrived around 1500 and we’re greeted by the fantastic team.

We sat down, had a few drinks (non alcoholic) analysed the demo list and discussed the demo which was going to take place the same night. We had a few hours to kill and decided to look around their impressive showroom. The showroom had changed from our last visit and had now been spit into 3 sections, here are some of the pics we took:

Section 1 – Chinese Fireworks. The massive domestic market fireworks showroom.

Section 2 – The Brothers Pyrotechnics Museum – An impressive collection of ancient firework tools, machines, historic posters, catalogues, and loads of other memorabilia.

Section 3 – American fireworks showroom. This huge showroom was full of American samples, there must have been over 1000 different fireworks, here are some of our favourite firework names / labels that made us laugh

You can view more pictures on the epic fireworks flickr account – click here.

After the tour, it had started to get dark and the Brothers team invited us all for some food and drink before the demo. We declined. A tactical ploy perhaps (only joking Garry), but from experience mixing boat loads of alcohol and then watching a fireworks demo was a big NO NO….beer goggles and firework demo’s don’t mix. We decided to have the demo first and beer later!

It was pretty cold and the demo started around 2000 and there were over 40 items to be seen. It lasted just under a hour and we were quite pleased with some of the fireworks. You can check out some of the videos on our Youtube Channel.

After the demo we went back to the hotel to discuss the demo and had a few beers

Tomorrow we would go back to Brothers Pyrotechnics head office and start to prepare the order.

To be continued…

SERIES 1 – EPISODE 9 – VISITING THE BIGGEST FIREWORK FACTORY IN BEIHAI. 
DATE – SUNDAY 26TH FEBRUARY 2012

We were all at breakfast for 0800 sharp and started to sample the food on offer. As I mentioned in episode 8 the food at this particular hotel was awesome and we made the most of it.

We had arranged to be picked up from the hotel at 1000 and the journey to the factory was just under an hour.
The physical size of factory was absolutely huge – it covered an area of over 4km squared and employed over a 1000 workers. The factory produced everything from small rockets to large professional shells. The factory also had it’s own dedicated professional display team which went all over China to perform awesome firework displays.

There was shed after shed after shed of workers producing fireworks. As i mentioned in episode 4 most of production at this time of year was for the American market who need the fireworks for the 4th July celebrations.

Below are some short videos i took of the workers making the fireworks and a guy who’s job was to break down the red China clay which is used as the bung in the bottom of the tubes – did you ever wonder why it was a reddish colour?

There were massive rolls of paper ready to be turned into tubes.

At last, we got to see some of our own products being made, dr thrust, king cobra, heavy duty and humming hornets
The factory doesn’t normally manufacture fireworks for the UK market at this time of year, but because we had very little stock left after a very busy 2011 they had agreed to make our fireworks early and ship them asap.

The factory also specialises in top quality display shells, check out the video below.

The factory tour took around 3 hours and it was soon dark, time for the firework demo. There was 73 items (mostly 1.3g barrages) to be seen in total, luckily it wasn’t raining and the temperature was bearable.

Here is an example of a demo sheet that i talked about in episode 3. The demo list gave you the order in which the firework were to be fired, the type of item (eg, roman candle, mine, sparkler etc.), the number of shots, tube size, powder weight, the packing (eg, 12 roman candles to a carton), shape/dimensions and the firework effects.

The firework demo took around 2 hours to complete, below are some of our favourite fireworks from the demo night

More videos from the demo night can be found on the official EpicFireworks YouTube channel.

After the demo we made our way back to the hotel. We arrived around 2300, ordered a few beers and discussed what we liked / not liked and what needed tweaking, by this I mean some fireworks were may be too slow, or too fast etc…

Tomorrow morning we would go back to the factory with a list of what we’d like to see again, confirm the prices, confirm the packing, go through the videos from the demo night etc.

Tomorrow afternoon we had planned to go to Brothers Pyrotechnics to meet the boss Garry Wong (picture below with Jimmy), the rest of the Brother’s team and have another fireworks demo

To be continued…