Category: Featured

Sonic Fireworks has won the 2022 British Firework Championships in Plymouth.

It’s the first time we have competed and we are the first local company to win the championships in the event’s 25 year history.

On a wet and windy second night our crew worked hard from 8am in the morning to rig a very complex and technical display. Their hard work paid off at 9:50pm when we lit up Plymouth with a sound and light spectacular to rapturous applause from the crowds.

Your display was Joyous from start to finish.

Plymouth Lord Mayor, Sue Dann

Husband and wife owners, Mike and Michelle Glover have run Sonic Fireworks for over 20 years in Mid Devon. They always travelled to Plymouth over the years to watch the Championships, vowing one-day to compete and 2022 was their opportunity.

To compete in the British Firework Championships is no minor undertaking, hundreds of hours of preparation goes into the display before even turning up on site. We turned up with 1 tonne of fireworks, over 2 tonnes of equipment and a crew of ten people.

The display consisted of 1242 fireworks fired over 10 minutes that were connected to our firing system with 2.6KM of cable.

All the displays this year contain a sequence of fireworks celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Our tribute consisted of a 35 metre wide by 30 metre high St George’s flag in fireworks with firework projections creating ‘E II R’ over the water we then ending with a thunderous red, white and blue aerial finale.

Sonic Fireworks were runners-up at the British Musical Fireworks Championships last year in Southport and as Mike says; 

“we kind of got bitten by the competition bug, we put our name forward for Plymouth and amazingly got drawn to compete and, well the rest is history!”

You’ll be able to watch many public displays by Sonic over the Bonfire Night season this year all across Devon & Cornwall. One of the biggest will be the Exeter Round Table’s display at Westpoint on November 5th.

A few thank you’s from Mike & Michelle

Firstly, our fantastic crew who worked their socks-off in pretty miserable weather to complete what was a very complex show on-time. All the fireworks fired, there were no malfunctions and no damaged equipment – in that weather it just goes to show how good they are.

(There was a small post-display fire in a couple of cakes – nothing out of the ordinary in that wind – it was dealt with quickly and professionally.)

A massive thank you goes to Mike’s Dad who has tirelessly supported the business and has been a rock behind the whole Sonic family. He’s 80 next year and still fitter than nearly all of us – a true legend!

The organiser’s, other competitors and support staff have been so nice and friendly it really has been a pleasure to be at this competition. A special mention goes to our next-door competition neighbours Fully Fused Fireworks and their boss Cliff Stonestreet who has been a friend and mentor to Mike over the last 20 years. They fired an awesome show and came third (they’ve come second and third before as well).

And finally, we have been overwhelmed with the notes on social media, email and messages from our customers, friends, business partners and just general supporters – it means the world to us that you love what we do. In these ‘woke’ days the anti-firework brigade have become a powerful and threatening force in our lives, it really does help us to know that there are not just haters out there – so thank you again to our wonderful supporters.

The British Firework Championships 2022 in the media

• Devon team crowned champions at British Fireworks Championships – Devon Live
• Devon-based company wins British Firework Championships – BBC News
• First-time competitors win British Firework Championships – Plymouth Live
• Sonic Fireworks win 2022 British Firework Championships – Official British Fireworks Championships website
• More as we get them.

Watch our Winning Display

Here is our winning display, we fired on Night 2 Display 2.

Rewatch the live stream from Night 1 – Wednesday 17th August 2022

Rewatch the live stream from Night 2 – Thursday 18th August 2022

• The British Firework Championship Official Site
• Visit Plymouth BFC’22 information

In our first ever professional fireworks competition, we came second!

The British Musical Fireworks Championship held in Southport is a prestigious UK competition for professional fireworks companies. Over the years, many of the UK’s top professional companies have competed, with some going on to compete in Global Fireworks Competitions.

Five competitors came together to compete over the 24th to 26th September in Victoria Park, Southport. Each company had to submit a musical theme and a show design before the event then five judges would mark the displays over the three-night competition.

The official rankings;
1st place, Dragon Fireworks from Kent
2nd place, Sonic Fireworks from Devon
3rd place, Star Fireworks from Berkshire

We took a team of ten up to Merseyside in 3 vans and a minibus. Our show was prepped on Saturday and rigged all day Sunday next door to Star Fireworks. They fired first, followed by our display on Sunday evening.

“It was a fantastic experience. We learned a lot and had a great time meeting other pyrotechnicians from across the UK.” Mike Glover said. “Of course, it was stressful at times, but I couldn’t be more proud of our team. To come away with second place in our first competition is amazing.”

The British Musical Fireworks Championship is one of the two major competitions in the UK, with the other being The British Fireworks Championships in Plymouth. The difference between them is that the Southport event has its fireworks displays set to music, known in the trade as a pyro-musical display.

Designed on the computer with the audio track and fired wirelessly by sophisticated firing systems. Our display had a James Bond theme with a mix of old and new Bond songs also a few famous clips from the Bond actors.

Across the competition, competitors use an estimated two tonnes of explosives with a total weight of fireworks used that exceeds 10 tonnes. Each show requires around five kilometres of wire to connect the electrical circuits and 10-15 technicians working for over 12 hours to set up the display.

Spectator Michael Paice said of Sonic’s display, “Not one of but THE best display I have EVER seen, and I’m not saying that just because I’m Bond aficionado.”

Will we compete in the Plymouth Championships? At the moment we don’t know but based on our experience in Southport the crew are raring to compete some more, so watch this space!

• See more photos and video (coming soon)
• Official British Musical Fireworks Championship 2021 website