Southport British Musical Fireworks Championships 2014

Last night saw the first competitors fill the skies over Southport for the beginning of the Southport British Musical Fireworks championships 2014.

Over the weekend there will be 7 professional shows from some of the UK’s finest pyrotechnic display teams who will show off their craft to a selection of popular and classical music tracks.

The first competitor to fire was the team from Distant Thunder Fireworks with their theme ‘Apollo Space Flight’ was from the very start a well paced show with lots of colour and effects and some absolutely gorgeous slices. The music was rich and varied but carried the theme well with tracks from 2001 A Space Odyssey, Europe’s famous ‘Final Countdown’ and Spaceman from Babylon Zoo all the way to the Blue Danube by Strauss.

The theme was carried well throughout the display but for me the outstanding part of the display was the choreography to the Strauss with its beautiful strobing pieces including some stunning ghost shells before the change of pace once again with the Prodigy and some gorgeous bright yellow-tipped star breaks with huge dragon tails.

Personally, as a lover of symmetry, I do tend to find that whilst big shells are absolutely beautiful, if there is the odd one randomly popped in there, rather than adding to the display I feel it detracts instead.

Onto the second team to fire, previous winners from 2004 Allstar Fireworks were on another level. There was a beautiful start again with some amazing slices absolutely on the beat from the outset with loads of variety with changes of pace and there wasn’t a moment’s hesitation as the music changed to Adele’s ‘Set Fire To The Rain’. Some lovely use of colour and great use of the full expanse of space before lifting the musical pace again to the catchy tunes of ‘we speak no americano’, ‘What did the fox say?’, ‘Hey Baby’ and of course ‘Cha-Cha Slide’ as they fired to the beat and on the ‘criss-cross’ they had some brilliantly bright titanium salutes that were quite simply ‘On It’.

The pace goes back again as they lit up the sky over Southport to the strains of Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ which again was well received by the audience and the falling leaves held the air for an age before the tempo increased again to Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance where they had some super fast-firing pieces in all manner of colours but keeping with the theme.

There were some exceptionally good spinners which clearly impressed the crowds with coloured strobing comets that were gorgeous but the false finale caught everyone on the hop. The Finale was a sky-full of beautiful pyro and in my opinion, was a fitting close to a wonderful display. Another thing I noted was that Allstar used a great deal more ground pyro with some brilliant variety.

I would say that whilst I think that Distant Thunder Fireworks Blue Danube section was amazing, the overall display from Allstar Firework took it for me last night but I am thoroughly looking forward to the offerings from Classic Fireworks, Smart Pyrotechnics and Gala Fireworks.