The 2015 Chinese New Year Fireworks Roundup!

Fireworks

This year, I decided to get a *massive* fireworks cake instead of multiple small ones like I usually do. I thought it’ll be nice to have a ginormous fireworks cake that requires two (2) people to move and blow all of my budget on that one single glorious aerial barrage. It was already in my mind the previous year and thus I made the necessary orders to get it done.

Fireworks 2015

This is all that I’ve got for Chinese New Year this year – one ridiculously large custom-made 27 kg fireworks cake, one 128 shot fireworks cake and two fountains. There are no firecrackers this year in respect of my late mom’s passing.

Happy Boom 333 shot 27 kg fireworks cake

333 Shots Fireworks

Behold! My centerpiece for this year! It’s 27 kilograms (about 60 pounds) and comes in it’s own box.

27kg Fireworks Cake

This is a custom-made display firework. It’s a divert from a licensed pyrotechnics show, which explains the 1.3G Display Grade sticker and it cost the average monthly household income around here but it’s worth it!

Largest Fireworks Cake

The sheer heft and dimensions dictates that two people was required to lug this monster out and all my cousins (and neighbors) came out to see it coz it’s not everyday someone gets such a huge fireworks cake.

Huge Fireworks Cake

This is one of three custom orders that came in and I managed to snag one of them. Just look at the size comparison to an iPad.

It measures 62 cm x 59 cm x 20 cm and when I lit it, it produced a full four (4) minutes of glory. There’s all sorts of aerial breaks in this 333 shot cake – green, blue and red starbursts, brocada crowns, green bees, white glitter, red chrysanthemums, sparkling willows and golden palm fronds that just blankets the entire sky from the angled fanning tubes in the middle.

I accidentally pressed stop while filming coz I thought it was over but the fireworks cake was merely shifting to the finale, which is an additional 1 minute in duration. You really have to see this video – it’s an *amazing* fireworks cake, the best I’ve ever purchased and it’s well worth the money I paid for it. πŸ™‚

Happy Boom Magic Fountain

Magic Fountain Happy Boom

This is a gift that I got from ordering the 333 shot fireworks cake. It retails for RM 30 and it was thrown in as a thank you gift. It should be noted that Happy Boom is a very generic name for fireworks and firecrackers and it’s used to describe everything from Happy Boom novelty packets to Happy Boom salutes.

This one has small aerial bursts in addition to fountains but it malfunctioned and ended up burning to the ground.

Burning Fountain

It’s not unlike the Italian Horseshoe Fireworks Fountain I got in KL – they’re prone to overheating due to the stress the gerbs are subjected to (heavy and sustained spurts instead of the lift charge that a fireworks cake produces).

London Bridge Fountain

London Bridge Fireworks Fountain

I really liked this one! It’s beautiful and I wrote about the new London Bridge firework fountain in more detail in another post. You can see the video here:

The gerbs produces bright and varied effects and the unusual colors that came out of this made this the most interesting fountain I’ve seen this year. It retailed for RM 50 but I got it for RM 30 with the bundle purchase of another fireworks cake (reviewed below). That might sound like a lot to pay for a fountain but this was really worth it due to the spectacular display!

Silvesters Pass & Rock ‘N Roll! Pyro 128 shot fireworks cake

Silvesters Rock N Roll Pyro

This is a Swan fireworks item which retailed for RM 120. Silvester is actually the name of a Roman Catholic holiday celebrated in Germany which coincides with New Year’s Eve. This is supposed to be a β€œnew” cake but the catalog number (KT 122) has popped up before so I suspect it’s a re-badged KT 122 with new effects…

128 Shots Fireworks Cake

…and I was right! It wasn’t as grand as my wonderful 333 shot fireworks cake but it added bulk and entertainment for my niece and nephews who were back home for the Lunar New Year holidays and missed the 333 shot monster I let off on CNY Eve.

KT122 Fireworks Cake

The effects of the Swan KT 122 has steadily improved over the years – this one had two series of fanned tubes to angle the aerial shells and there are some new breaks that were too expensive to be put in previous years, like the starting silent comet tail strobes (one of my favorite dramatic effects) and the crossette breaks.

This one is the best in the KT 122 series I’ve seen to date. I love the pace and the dramatic use of strobes – there are actually a lot of them in this cake, so much so that they had to skimp on the other breaks but if you love a beautiful (and not too loud) strobe cake, this would do you just fine. My niece and nephews loved it!

Hope you all had a great Chinese New Year! Enjoy the videos and Happy Chap Goh Meh everyone! πŸ™‚

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20 thoughts on “The 2015 Chinese New Year Fireworks Roundup!”

  1. Happy Chap Goh Meh to you & family.. Yesterday last day liao, so all your fireworks habis already ahh? Wah, you really bought a lot of fireworks leh, lucky we are not staying nearby.. Paling geram is when the kids or baby wakes up from sleep because of the fireworks, sigh.. But fireworks is a happy thing, I cannot be a party-pooper la, hehe..

    Reply
    • Thanks! πŸ™‚

      Yup, I finished most of the fireworks I got this year but my stock never habis one. I usually buy more than I need and I also got shares cases with other friends and I was (VERY) saddened to hear that my dad threw away one very rare 1.5 meter “Roman Candle” (which is actually an aerial repeater with 5 shots over the 3″ bore) coz he said it was disintegrating and dirtying up the house.

      I still have two boxes of random assorted cakes and other fireworks that I haven’t let off yet, mostly coz I concentrate on the biggest cakes. I have a lot of salutes that I bought but never lit coz it’s too loud and scares my nieces and nephews.

      Reply
    • That picture is literally worth *more* than thousands! πŸ™‚

      Haha! I would have no need of an industrial air-conditioner at home too. Just the large cakes to the right would cost thousands. I got to take photos which is very hard for most people, but since I was a regular they didn’t mind, as long as I didn’t take the entire shop and people’s faces since it’s after all, not a legal venture.

      These are the common commercial ones, mine I had to order in, supposed to have only 3 of the 333 shot ones in Sibu this year and I managed to snag one!

      Reply
  2. I love watching firework. However I do not think that playing them in the narrow compound and narrow neighborhood street is a good idea.
    There is always possibility of things go wrong. I could cause fire especially in the densely populated area. I hope that you do some risk assessment in future.

    Reply
    • It’s just our culture in Sibu! πŸ™‚

      Hmm…you have a point there, but do you know that it’s a myth that fireworks (1.4G) would cause a mass explosion hazard? It’s not true, they’re not made to explode and they’re not made to cause a mass fire hazard as well.

      1.4G Consumer Fireworks can have pretty awesome failures on video but ultimately the risk of fire is limited if you use common sense. Every third household was letting off fireworks in my street and I’ve never heard of fires happening (except for one year when I was a kid, where the houses were made of wood).

      Reply
  3. Have you also consider how insurance compensate if properties caught fire? As it is an illegal act, the insurance company might refuse to pay. It is not a good position to be in if it does happen.

    Reply
    • You have a point there, but it just doesn’t happen to modern houses! πŸ™‚

      There are heaps of people letting of fireworks each year in Sibu, and some are the dangerous 1.3G Display Grade (or even 1.1G, which all salutes and Chinese firecrackers and display shells above 4″ are labelled). The worst thing that can happen is if there’s a structural failure and the entire fireworks cake explodes – it has happened many times to me before, the bursts/flares/strobes will burn out before anything can possibly catch on fire (including other fireworks – mass detonation, contrary to popular belief, is really just a myth).

      There’s nothing a basic fire extinguisher can’t take care of. It’s like worrying about an accident, during Chinese New Year, we all just take basic precautions and enjoy ourselves. It’s what I love about Sibu! Caution is always good though.

      Reply
    • Yeah, there are heaps of fireworks sold openly in Sibu! πŸ™‚

      I got to know some of the people bringing them in well (two out of five anyway) so I usually just order. The guy I usually go to has the product photos for me via Whatsapp so I can actually order *BEFORE* he decides to ship it to Sibu e.g. when it’s still in China.

      That was how the 333 shot fireworks cake came about, it was a 27 kg custom made item for a pyrotechnics show and 3 extra were brought in, and I booked one of them.

      Reply
  4. Wooaahh.. can’t wait to go home and play the videos that you shared… my broadband in office has too little bandwidth that even opens a blog takes sometime..

    I witnessed more than 30mins of fireworks by Lee Onn’s boss. It was amazing but their neighbourhood mai su also.. theirs, though not as long as Lee Onn’s .. but their fireworks are much more nicer.. hahaha..

    Your neighbours are lucky πŸ™‚

    Reply
  5. I am now mourning and not celebrating CNY 2016 so I guess I should fly to Sibu and watch you shoot more fireworks next year! I can see that Sibu has very happening CNY festive spirits yearly.

    Reply

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