Philippines 2019

Mark and Mel set off for the 10th Philippine competition in early February and as normal, they were warmly welcomed by the organisers Platinum Fireworks who picked them up from the airport and took them to the team’s hotel for the duration of their stay. After they settled in, they went out to watch the two teams that were competing that evening before heading over to the roadhouse for a few beers and to discuss the plan of action for the week.

This year all of the mortars were ready and in position and the product was there and waiting for them to start the task of setting up. During the set up the weather was in the mid to late 30’s throughout the week so it made a pleasant change for Mark as two weeks previous the temperature in Courchevel wasn’t getting above freezing.  The set up took them a total of 5 days with 20 crew, 2 from Pyrotex and 18 from Platinum.

On show day the anxiety was high, and the crowd were sceptical on what Pyrotex could pull off with us being reigning champions. We fired second on the night after Viviano S.R.L of Italy who put on a magnificent show that got a great reaction from the crowd. Our show was a little bit different from previous years and we went more technical with our design, including the letter / number shooting sequences to start each ‘Decade’ and two heart sequences during two of our tracks.

Our finale was a bit different from the normal brocade crown crowd-pleaser that we have done over the past few years as we had decided to go with a glitter crackling crossett. Over 2500 shells alone were used in the finale, which was almost 2 minutes long, it was absolutely unbelievable to witness first hand. Once the finale finished the crowd went berserk followed by the technical director of Platinum Fireworks who was shouting over the radio that we had set his field on fire!

On the results night Pyrotex came in second place joined with France (Brezac Artiefices). We came away without the win this time, but we were accoladed with The Magic Circle Award for us winning the competition three times in a row which is never been achieved in the history of the competition. Which is a huge achievement and something Pyrotex is very proud of.