This year’s edition of the Malta International Fireworks Festival will be a special one, with events spread across the country and over more than a week rather than the usual 2-3 days at the Grand Harbour.
The festival now officially starts on 23 April – although there also is a brief show on the previous night – and closes on 1 May, and activities will be held daily with the exception of 24 April. Floriana will also be hosting its ground fireworks’ festival on 21 April.
Nevertheless, the festival’s main event will still be at the Grand Harbour, where six fireworks manufacturers from six different countries will be competing through pyro-musical displays. This year, Lija’s St Michael’s Fireworks Factory will be flying Malta’s flag, having been the only local factory to apply. But over 20 other local fireworks manufacturers will be contributing to the rest of the festival. The decision to extend the festival was made because this year, Malta will be hosting the International Symposium on Fireworks conference, which has been organised 12 times across the world since 1992. The conference is set to attract over 300 people involved in the pyrotechnic industry, and will last from April 23 to 27.
The festival itself had persuaded the symposium’s organisers to organise this year’s event in Malta, Malta Tourism Authority CEO Josef Formosa Gauci said.
Conference participants will be hosted at the Grand Hotel Excelsior in Floriana, and welcoming them on the night of Sunday, 22 April will be an 8-minute pyro-musical display organised by FireOne Malta in collaboration with the St Nicholas Fireworks’ Factory of Siġġiewi.
The following day, another pyro-musical display will be held in Mdina – the fireworks themselves will be launched from the old railway bridge – through the participation of Italian manufacturer Scarpato/PyroDigiT and Żurrieq’s Mount Carmel Fireworks’ Factory.
After a day’s break, the next event is to be held in Mellieħa, where a festa atmosphere will be in place. This time round, the event will start before sundown, as 16 local fireworks festivals will be participating to produce a variety of traditional Maltese fireworks – including daylight fireworks and mechanised ground fireworks.
The following day’s event will be in Buġibba, and will focus on Maltese ground fireworks through the participation of nine local factories. The event will display the chronological development of Maltese ground fireworks, starting from traditional Catherine wheels to more sophisticated mechanised pieces.
The first display at the Grand Harbour will take place on 27 April, with a pyro-musical display by Pirico Fireworks and a demo display by fellow Italian manufacturers Ugo Lieto Fireworks. Last year’s festival winners – Qrendi’s Lourdes Fireworks Factory – will see the night off with a pyro-musical display of their own.
On Saturday, 28 April, the event will be moved to Gozo, and paired with the Seħer il-Punent festival organised by the Għarb local council. Two Gozitan fireworks factories will collaborate to produce traditional aerial and ground firework displays.
The competition will start on 29 April, with teams from Canada, the UK and Austria taking part. The following day, St Michael’s Fireworks Factory as well as manufacturers from Croatia and Poland will compete.
Each team will have to produce a pyro-musical display of at least 14 minutes in length, using music from their country of origin and incorporating at least two minutes without music.
The winner will be announced and awarded a prize on 1 May, when the festival will be closed by a grand pyro-musical display by Italian factory Parente Fireworks. A cruise liner will actually be staying overnight to witness this display, Mr Formosa Gauci announced.
This year’s edition will be the 11th of a festival which started out as a local festival but which subsequently attracted fireworks’ manufacturers from across the globe. The festival is organised by the Tourism Ministry and by the MTA.
Tourism Minister Mario de Marco explained that the two entities sought to organise regular events which are then promoted by the MTA overseas.
The minister noted that such events not only improved Malta’s offering to tourists, but also helped to attract last-minute bookings, which have been increasing in recent years. He argued that scheduled events may tip the balance in Malta’s favour for tourists choosing a destination at the last minute.
He also noted that despite the prevalence of fireworks in Malta, they only started to be used outside of religious feasts recently, and expressed his hope that Malta would eventually join much of the world in organising a fireworks display on New Year’s Eve.