The man responsible for staging this spectacle has worked solidly for five months to make the highlight of the Queenstown Winter Festival opening party something rather special.
Fireworks International owner Paul Collins, of Christchurch, arrived in the resort on Wednesday to start the set-up for the 2012 display, which he said would feature "several thousand" fireworks shooting from a barge on Lake Wakatipu and areas of the foreshore.
He has worked at 20 winter festivals. Each year he tries to bring something more sophisticated to the resort.
"The challenge of doing an annual event is to be innovative. Queenstown being the go-ahead place that it is, that's particularly important," he said.
Mr Collins said there were "very particular" health and safety requirements for any display, but Queenstown presented a "unique case".
"You've got the lake, the barge, the other boats, hundreds of people ... doing what they're told to do. In the early days you could just assume people would behave themselves - in today's climate, you just can't assume."
He said tonight's display was designed to be synchronised around selected music. This was one of the biggest developments in fireworks, he said, with "increasing degrees of sophistication in timing".
"We have digital firing equipment. We have the firing down to parts of a second. If you're firing different size shells you know how long each one takes to get to the height they burst [at]."
Once the music had been decided, Mr Collins set about designing the show, working with the rhythm and mood and "always finishing with a big finale or crescendo".
"You time your bursts in time with the music - you build the delays into the plan.''
Mr Collins got involved in the pyrotechnic industry after starting his own events business, hiring Australian-based company Syd Howard Fireworks International to provide fireworks displays for clients. He then started his own company and it grew to the extent that Mr Collins staged the display that marked the end of the 2011 Rugby World Cup in Auckland last October.
Tonight, five people will be in charge of the display in Queenstown - some based on the barge with electric igniters, others with digital equipment designed to ensure the opening party starts with several thousand almighty bangs from 7pm.
