Our Past Work
Information on just a small selection of our work
We have lots of videos of our displays on You Tube and pictures on Instagram that aren't listed here, this page contains just a selection of our work.
Please use these links to find the relevant section:
Wedding and Private Pyromusical Displays
British Musical Firework Champions 2022/23
Victoria Park, Southport
In 2020, we decided to take a big step for the company and enter the British Musical Firework Championship, the largest firework competition in the UK. Sadly with the pandemic, the event was cancelled like many others and whilst we spent 2021 recovering, we then felt ready to compete to our fullest abilities in 2022.
Held across multiple nights in Southport, this competition requires companies to provide a 17 minute showcase pyromusical display. We spent many months creating a soundtrack, sourcing special products and designing our most complicated display to date.
On the preparation day and then our firing day itself we were greated by amazing weather for Southport, a place known for terrible conditions! With 19 front sites, 7 cake sites, 5 shell sites and the technical elements such as the now famous "roses" and "celine", it was a complicated set up! But with a team of 17 we managed our full set up and testing just in time! The display fired faultlessly, with our soundtrack, design and all our technical elements getting a fantastic reaction from the audience.
Unfortunately the weather for Sunday's teams was not as favourable meaning the final night of the competition could not go ahead as planned. However the judges deliberated between the five teams who did manage to fire and we are happy to say we were crowned the British Musical Firework Champions! Our biggest achievement to date and a huge moment for everyone at Optimum!
The resulting video, filmed by Pyro Productions, has become our most watched on YouTube with an ever growing audience.
Firework Champions Winners 2020
Eastnor Castle, Ledbury
In 2020, we had planned to have a year away from the Firework Champions competition. After competing for six years, we planned an entry into the British Musical Firework Championships in Southport. Unfortunately due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this was cancelled. Four rounds of the Firework Champions competition were however arranged for the summer, with a new added drive in area and social distanced viewing area. 12 days prior to the Eastnor Castle round we were contacted by the organisers to say a spance had become available and we took up the challenge of completing once again!
Due to the timescale, we based our display around our 2017 entry at Arley Hall, creating an updated and improved version. To say we had only 12 days to design, order, collect and prepare the display, we made it even more complicated than before!
On the day itself we were greated by amazing weather, which helped set up run smoothly throughout. With 15 front sites, 7 shell sites and 29 lance positions running across the front, it was a complicated set up! But after 6 months without displays, it was a welcome return to fireworks for all the teams
We were very happy (and surprised) to take home our fifth Firework Champions title, an unexpected trophy to add to the cabinet!
Firework Champions Winners 2019
Stanford Hall, Leicestershire
In 2019, we were invited to compete at Stanford Hall in Leicestershire. This is a very special venue to Optimum as it was the place we first witnessed and attended a Firework Champions event, only to dream at that point of taking part!
We again designed a 10 minute display set to a wide range of songs, starting with an eerie movie edit of "What a Wonderful World", featuring hidden fountains in the trees for the "I see trees of green" moment, followed by bright red mines for the "red roses too"! This became our most talked about opening to a display to date!
We also spent many many hours perfecting a love heart shaped projection for our middle song, "The Power of Love" by Gabrielle Aplin. The four moments in the show took many trial runs to perfect, with over 120 single shots used in the show itself to project a red loveheart across the full 100m wide site. They had to be perfectly vertical on the day itself, meaning many hours of levelling and perfecting their position on the uneven ground.
We finished the display with a rerun of our crews favourite finale from our five years in the competition, the Galantis Runaway sequence from 2016 at Newby Hall. We couldn't wait to see this new improved version once again!
The display received a brilliant crowd reaction firing second and we were happy to recieve our fifth Firework Champions title with our highest ever voting percentage! Definitely a night to remember!
Firework Champions Winners 2018
Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire
In 2018, we competed in our fifth Firework Champions competition! How time flies looking back at our very first time at Broughton Hall! The anticipation and nerves never change!
Once again the evening entailed Optimum showcasing their abilities, by designing and firing a 10-12 minute display set to music, competing against two other top UK display companies.
This year, our display featured a track from our very own wedding display, the wonderful Your Song from Moulin Rouge, as well as a finale of This Is Me from the top movie of the year Greatest Showman
The event was typical of the British summer, with burning hot sun throughout set up, followed by sudden torrential downpours for the rest of the evening! Luckily thorough waterproofing by all the teams meant that the event still ran perfectly, with all four shows firing unaffected
After many many hours designing, preparing and setting up on the day, we were proud to be announced the winner for the fourth time!
Firework Champions 2017
Arley Hall, Cheshire
In 2017, we were invited back to the Firework Champions competition, with a return to Cheshire competing at the brand new venue, Arley Hall.
We again designed a 10 minute display set to 4 popular songs, this time featuring tracks by Birdy, Clean Bandit, Lana Del Rey and finishing with a very special ending to the classic Children by Robert Miles!
The event again posed challenges for the teams, as only two weeks before firing the display we were told by Manchester Airport that we had a height limit for the display. This meant a full redesign, especially of the finale, removing all 5 and 6" shells from the display, replacing them with larger quantities of smaller shells. This was a stressful time for all the teams involved!
The day itself was was a lot less eventful! It may have been our most complicated show to date, with over 1000 cues set up by a team of only 7 (we had a very large wedding musical on the same night!) but the display fired with a 100% success rate, a major achievement for this scale of display
Unfortunately we couldn't continue our amazing run of wins, being narrowly voted into second place, however it still remains one of our favourite shows to date.
Pictures of our 2017 competition can be seen on our Facebook page, including albums on the setup and display itself
Firework Champions Winners 2016
Newby Hall, Ripon
In 2016, we competed in our third year of the Firework Champions competition, this time at Newby Hall on 23rd July.
We again designed a 10 minute display set to 6 popular songs (we couldn't decide!), again featuring tracks by Kygo and Labrinth (keeping the tradition) plus songs by Galantis, Naughty Boy and Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Jess Glynne.
This year we decided to keep all of our sites firmly on the ground, however challenged ourself with our most complicated design yet. The show featured 13 front sites and a very special 25 roman candle hedgehog!
Thankfully, this year the weather gave us no surprises, with glorious Yorkshire sunshine throughout and perfect firing conditions.
We are happy to say that we again took home the title, making it 3 out of 3 for the Optimum Team in competitions, being the first company to achieve this record!
Pictures of our 2016 competition can be seen on our Facebook page, including albums on the setup and display itself
Firework Champions Winners 2015
Capesthorne Hall, Cheshire
In 2015, we were invited back to the Firework Champions competition, this time taking a place at Capesthorne Hall on 22nd August.
We again designed a 10 minute display set to 4 popular songs, this time featuring tracks by Lana Del Ray, Kygo, Ella Henderson and again ending with Labrinth!
The event again posed challenges for the teams, this time featuring a row of large trees obscuring the audience view over the lake to the firing site. We decided to think outside the box after our 2014 success! This time, we made use of the loan of a telehandler in our display design, rasing a large platform above the treeline, allowing us a wide range of interesting effects!
The day itself was very eventful! We were woken from our tents at 5am by torrential rain, followed by a day's rigging in boiling hot temperatures, followed by one of the largest thunderstorms we have seen before firing time! It was a worry for all the teams the the displays would be unable to fire, but luckily everything went as planned.
We are happy to say that we again took home the title, making it 2 out of 2 for the Optimum Team in competitions!
Pictures of our 2015 competition can be seen on our Facebook page, including albums on the setup and the display itself
Firework Champions Winners 2014
Broughton Hall, Skipton
In 2014, we decided to compete for the first time in the Firework Champions competition, after helping other competitors and the organisers in previous years.
The evening entailed Optimum showcasing their abilities, by designing and firing a 10-12 minute display set to music, competing against two other top UK display companies. The events are unique within the UK as the audience decides the winner on the night in the form of text voting.
Our display featured tracks by Lana Del Ray, One Republic and Labrinth and entailed 17 sites, over 800 cues and many hours of work!
The event posed many challenges for the teams, including the layout of the venue, which meant that the majority of the display was situated behind Broughton Hall and therefore partially blocked from the audience view. We decided that we liked a challenge and designed our display around a large scaffolding tower, raising our centre site into the air for prime viewing!
After many many hours designing, preparing and setting up on the day, we were proud to be announced the winner and take the title in our very first year!
Pictures of our 2014 competition can be seen on our Facebook page, including albums on the setup and the display itself