We fire around twenty nights a year, all over Sussex and Kent: weddings, harvest suppers, village greens, one very long Bonfire Night. Tell us about yours.
This seasonWhere we're firing
- Sat 17 OctHarvest nightFirle, East SussexA village field, a hog roast and twelve minutes of willows and chrysanthemums. Public, free, bring a torch.
- Sat 31 OctA wedding by the OusePrivateFive minutes, to a string quartet playing across the water. Pistil peonies in the couple's colours.
- Thu 5 NovBonfire Night, private fieldNear LewesOur longest night: twenty minutes, one hundred and eighty shells, one kamuro to close.
- Sat 12 DecMidwinterAshdown Forest edgeA quiet show — no salutes, just strobes and silver over the trees. Tickets through the hall.
Your nightTell us about it
We read every note ourselves and answer within two working days, with a first idea of the programme and a price.
QuestionsWe get asked
We walk the site with you first and set the fall-out zone for the largest shell we will fire, with the distances marked on a plan you keep. Bigger shells need bigger fields; if yours is small, we build the show from small shells.
Light rain is fine — the shells are sealed in paper and paste. Strong wind towards the audience is not. We make the call on the night, and a postponed show keeps its date in our diary.
Yes. A round shell's break is a soft thump; the loud reports come from salutes, which we can leave out entirely. Our quiet shows are mostly strobes, willows and silver.
No. We only fire what we make, and we fire it ourselves, with our own crew.
For a wedding or a Saturday in autumn, six months. For Bonfire Night, the year before.
Or come and watch the paste dry: workshop visits on Saturday mornings, by appointment. Ask for one.