3 September

Howard & Sons Pyrotechnics have won the Malaysian International Fireworks Competition and the prestigious Merdeka Gold Trophy in Putrajaya. The winner's trophy was presented to Howard & Sons by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at a grand closing ceremony last night (Sunday 2nd September) at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre.

Howard & Sons proudly represented Australia and produced a powerful and emotional twenty minute pyromusical titled “Aurora Australis” that took the 150,000 members of the audience on a magical scenic journey through Australia painted by Howard & Sons pyrotechnic paints and narrated by Australian music and featured extracts from Dorothea Mackellar’s poem ‘My Country’.

Andrew & Christian Howard are very proud to win this inaugural International Fireworks Competition ahead of very reputable pyrotechnicians from Japan, Malaysia and Italy. “This is a great achievement and we are very proud of our entire team, everyone put in a lot of effort into this display and to win this competition in a year we are celebrating our 85th year of business is fantastic.”

“Stuart Bensley our display designer and programmer has excelled himself with this pyromusical, the soundtrack he produced, the firing patterns he designed and the perfect synchronisation of the fireworks dancing to the music was without doubt what impressed judges the most.”

Quotes from audience members:

“wow nice!! .. the Australian team seem to have more fireworks tricks than the other teams..”

“You guys put on a great show; let's see what the Italian and Japanese teams can do to beat that one.”

“yes...the aussies were great, so colourful, even my boy whom is 14 months clap hands and said wa haha.....”

“Thank you Team Australia for the brilliant fireworks last night. I loved it! Breathtaking finale too...”

“Brilliant pyrotechnics!!! Team Australia, you really live up to Disneyland!!!”

Judging Criteria & Procedures
Evaluation of fireworks whose minimum duration must be twenty (20) minutes, excluding spoken texts introducing the segment of the display. Each of the sub-paragraphs a-e below is worth ten (10) points each. a) The general concept: presentation, structure and scale of display; b) The choice and variety of colours; c) The originality of the display units: manufacturing and utilization; d) The display production: rhythm of fire; volume of effects and quality of construction; e) The correlation between fireworks and music: choice of music, synchronization of effects and adaptation of moods.