Newsbox Fireworks with Flashpoint Fireworks

UKFR members came from far and wide for an opportunity to see a huge amount of pyro being fired courtesy of Newsbox Fireworks at an event organised by UKFR member Steve (Meggsy). Brands included Cosmic, Fireworks International, Black Cat, Sandling, Men Shun, Mars, Vulcan and Kimbolton. And if that wasn't enough, Flashpoint Fireworks were on hand to finish the evening with a bang!

I arrived at the venue (a pub, hurray!) in the afternoon to find Raj from Newsbox already hard at work setting up with the help of Jeff (aka Ambientskies).

Jeff has that "Will you stop taking pictures and help lift some boxes" look on his face!

I had seen a preview list of the pyro already but even so was surprised at the amount of boxes and stakes - they were everywhere. This was going to be a good night. After a quick tour around the site taking pictures I offered to help out but luckily Jeff nearly broke my thumb while I was holding a stake for him and I had to go off in agony for a medicinal pint of beer. Leave it to the experts, Pete!

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1: Raj (Newsbox) and Jeff unload the van 2: Wide view of the demo area showing the excellent venue and huge amount of pyro 3: Mars Pyrotechnics' massive The Grandad 4: Yep, it's cat 3. Yep, it's packed 1/1 per box and weighs nearly 30kg 5: Another big Mars cake 6: And another

Of particular interest were some large cakes from Mars Pyrotechnics. When I say large, I'm talking nearly 30kg per cake for The Grandad, a 100 shot, 30mm bore beast. You can see the scale of these items in the pictures above. A quick look at the label confirmed they were classed as cat 3, these were going to be interesting.

Wide view of the venue, look at all that pyro!!

You can see above just how many fireworks there were, and also how good the venue was. A very long field sloped gently down into a small valley with nothing but fields all around. This location has since been used for the Fireworks Competition in 2005 and confirmed as its venue for 2006 too.

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1: Another setting up view 2: Jeff's cool idea of marking the fuse location on each item with a glow stick 3: Over to the Flashpoint crew now as they set up the cat 4 finale 4: The Flashpoint brothers check the weather while Steve gets down to some hard work 5: Bazooka candle fan 6: Single shot MLE candles

The Flashpoint Fireworks crew arrived shortly afterwards: Jason, his brother Byron and Steve (aka Flash, Flash2 and Meggsy). They were doing the cat 4 finale, just a little but nonetheless loud ending to the evening.

Their blast would include candle fans and of course some aerial shells. They got to work fusing and connecting the electrical ignitors while Raj and Jeff finished staking the cat 3.

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1: View of a shell rack 2: Fusing the shells 3: Even a small cat 4 show needs loads of equipment! 4: Candle fans 5: Firing box ready for connection

Darkness started to fall while final touches were made where necessary and firing orders were discussed. UKFR members started to arrive, looking very forward to the evening's promised entertainment.

Steve fuses up some candle fans

And so the first part of the show started, over sixty cat 2 and 3 retail items fired singly for members to rate and review. These have already been extensively covered in our Review section where you can see film and pictures of the fireworks in action, plus member comments. Shown below is a selection of some of the better still shots from these fireworks.

The only items not featured in our reviews at the time were the Mars Pyrotechnics fireworks. However you can of course view the footage we took: Mars Intro (Mother Of All Bombs, Carpet Bomber, overlapped) 26Mb DivX clip; Goliath Fan Cake 5.2Mb DivX clip; Grandad (30Kg cake) 19Mb DivX clip.

With the cat 3 over, it was time for a short finale from the professionals...

BOOM! That'll be Flashpoint!

See the Flashpoint Fireworks finale. Click here - 7Mb DivX clip.