Apart from on Bonfire Night, New Year’s Eve is perhaps the biggest night of the year for fireworks. The colours, lights and amazing effects are the perfect way to celebrate the end of the year and welcome in 2015, but fireworks displays can get quite busy, not to mention expensive. Would it be better to hold your own fireworks display, or should you let someone else organise the display and buy all the fireworks? Here are a few things to think about…

How much will it cost?

Holding your own fireworks display is undoubtedly more expensive than going to an organised display, simply because good quality fireworks cost more than a ticket to your local display. However, you don’t need to buy anywhere near as many fireworks if you’re setting them off for friends and family, nor do you need the display to last as long as a public one. If everyone chips in for the fireworks, you might find that the cost per person isn’t too much more than the ticket price for your local display.

A personal celebration

One of the nice things about holding your own fireworks display on NYE is that you can invite all your nearest and dearest and have your own personal celebration. Compared to sharing a cold field with lots of strangers, having a display in your back garden before heading inside for the countdown at midnight can be a charmingly intimate way to ring in the New Year.

Organising the display and keeping everyone safe

If you’ve never set off fireworks before, it could be dangerous to hold your own NYE fireworks display. These explosive products can mis-fire or shoot off in the wrong directions if set off by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, which can cause serious injuries as well as being a waste of money. Unless you have the experience and skill to safely and correctly launch your fireworks, or you know someone who does, it may be safer to go to an organised local display.

Another thing to consider is the quality of your display. If you don’t really know what you’re doing, you could end up with big gaps between fireworks, or setting them all off at once – which can be a real waste of money as well as making your display disappointingly short. So unless you have a professional fireworks display organiser on hand to consult or plan the display for you, you may need to research how to get the best out of your fireworks, or your money may be better spent on a ticket to a local display. You need to think about your party guests as well as your money, and you want them to have as good a display as possible.

Ultimately, it’s up to you where you see your New Year’s Eve fireworks, but whatever you do – make sure you’re safe. Only buy good quality fireworks, teach children about firework safety and above all, have an amazing time!