Team Australia Win Da Nang 2015

You may recall back in January we brought you news of one of the biggest fireworks competitions in the World – DIFC (Da Nang International Fireworks Competition) which pits the best of the best against one another. It is the only competition of its kind in Vietnam.

2015 saw competitors arriving in Vietnam from South Africa, Australia, the US, Poland and of course, local team Danang Fireworks from Vietnam.

This year was a fiercely fought battle in the skies over the beautiful Han River but yesterday, the overall winners were announced : TEAM AUSTRALIA WINS DIFC.

Howard & Sons are a professional firework company display team from Wallerawang in Australia. The company produce some of the best firework shows in the World and previous displays for MASSIVE events including Sydney Olympics in 2000, the Commonwealth Games and of course the massive celebrations for Australia Day. They not only display but actually make the vast majority of their own pyrotechnics as well.

Howard & Sons are 4th generation pyro-technicians and follow in the footsteps of Sydney Howard, great-grandfather to the current owners, who set up the business in 1922 and it has never looked back. In fact, in the early days the team were fortunate enough to fire the displays for the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, for the bi-centenary celebrations of Captain Cook landing in Australia and the opening of the iconic Sydney Opera House.

Today, the team put on around 600 World Class shows annually but things did not always go to plan as Australia banned the sale of all fireworks at the end of the 70’s and the company, which had been wholly dependent on the retail and wholesale sale of fireworks changed into a display only team and that as they say is history.

Each year the organisers select a ‘theme’ and this year’s was ‘A Symphony of Colour’ indicative of the amount of colour filling the skies over Vietnam.

I have to say that having seen all the displays online, the Australian display was on another level altogether and even the US team, who can usually pull something a little unusual out of the hat, simply didn’t hold a candle. The finale they put on was absolutely without equal and they can hold their heads high as masters of the genre.

Second place was awarded to Poland, who for the most part put on a staggeringly beautiful display but I think a couple of miss timed pieces put them into a very worthy runner-up spot with some BIG ghost shells and some precisely timed sweeping effects and ‘daisy’ bursts.

Once again, our very warmest congratulations to the winners Howard & Sons.