Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report Fireworks Festival

We just returned from the Gunning Fireworks Festival. Gunning is about 65km north of Canberra.

The aim of the festival is for the makers of fireworks to show their wares to prospective clients and we mere public get to watch!

At 6.50 the demonstrations started with 50 000 crackers, then 100 000 crackers. Then they showed one of this, one of that. Then ten of this and ten of that. Then 50 then 100 then 240.

There were 140+ items on the demonstration list. From Item 100 onwards, 65 was the smallest number set off in each demonstration.

At 8.05 the demonstrations finished and there was a five minute break til the real show started. This lasted 10 minutes and was complete with music. At one stage looking straight up and straight ahead you could see fireworks. So a total of 1hr 30min of fireworks.

We were so close that the time from the flash to the bang was less than a second (3 seconds would be a kilometre, 5 would be a mile - based on times for judging lightning and thunder distance). So at less than a second we were within 300m of the bang!

Apparently it is the largest fireworks outside of Sydney's New Years Eve.

It only cost $10 to get in or $25 for a family of five and most of that went to local charities.

If you intend to go -
Gates open at 3pm and close at 9pm.
Get there early if you want to park in the grounds.
There are food stalls (some rides and face painting too) but get in early as the queues are quite long after 6pm.
There is not much in Gunning itself - a pub, a petrol station and a few craft shops.

I wrote to thank the organisers for a great evening. They said that next year and future years will be even better! WOW!

http://gunningfireworksfestival.com.au/