Britain's firework manufacturers fears next year will be a damp squib. Business has been good this November, but as local authorities and corporate clients start to feel the squeeze, the tiny but resilient British pyrotechnics industry is starting to worry
It's a busy time for Ron Lancaster, the 79-year-old founder and chairman of Kimbolton Fireworks. Not only is Friday bonfire night, but he is also filling in as vicar at his four local village churches in Cambridgeshire.
The former chemistry teacher founded the company – the only one left in the UK which manufactures outdoor fireworks on a large scale – in 1964 after years of messing around with things that go bang. During the second world war he helped organise displays for the local community when fireworks were scarce. His passion remains as bright as ever.
Despite his wife's protests, he still works mornings at the company, although he is no longer in day to day control. But he is worried that business could take a hit next year if firework display budgets are squeezed as companies and councils tighten their belts. "It looks like we will be doing quite well until the end of the year," he tells the Observer. "The big question is what happens next year when budgets are reviewed."
The fireworks industry is not large. His company – one of the best known in the industry – employs about 15 people full-time. According to the British Pyrotechnists Association (BPA), excluding firework retailers and one-person outfits, the industry numbers only about 40 businesses. In all, only a few hundred are employed all year round, although this rises to about 4,000 in the busiest times – the summer, November and New Year's Eve. The BPA estimates the industry generates about £20m each year, although this excludes associated costs related to staging professional fireworks displays, such as policing and stewarding.
The fireworks industry is more plugged into the UK – and global – economy than may be first apparent. Apart from selling fireworks, the industry's big earner is staging professional displays for corporate clients and events such as the Henley Royal Regatta, as well as public displays on behalf of councils. According to the BPA, members make almost half their profits in November, with the rest coming in the summer and on New Year's Eve.
Most public bonfire night displays are funded by donations and local business sponsorship rather than from cash-strapped councils. In 2008 and 2009, Tom Smith, the BPA's secretary said, events were scaled back or cancelled as a result of the recession. This week's displays – booked weeks or even months ago – should see a return to pre-credit-crunch standards, though.
Excluding 2008-09, over the last decade spending on professional displays has risen by about 5% a year. Whether local businesses, which have traditionally supported community displays, will be as generous next year remains to be seen.
The largest regular events – the New Year's Eve display in London, which costs more than £1m, and Edinburgh – are paid for out of local government budgets that are starting to be cut back. The London Olympics in 2012 will provide a big boost, even though in terms of scale, and cost, it will not come close to other extravaganzas overseas. The 35,000 fireworks set off during the $50m (£31m) three-and-a-half-hour opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 set a record for the largest display. This was surpassed a few months later with the opening of the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai, with a display seven times the size.
As Smith points out, this means that fireworks made in Britain have to be better designed and more sophisticated. For example, Kimbolton Fireworks makes customised products designed for computer-controlled choreographed displays. Kimbolton also adds unique colours and bangs to its fireworks.
In this respect, the fireworks industry is no different from the rest of Britain's manufacturers aiming to deliver innovative hi-tech products to compete against low-cost mass producers. "We will never outbang Dubai or the Beijing Olympics in terms of quantity. But you can be cleverer and more artistic," Smith says.