Photos: Mark Zammit Cordina

For once, a 13-storey tower crane standing in a field in Qormi is not the harbinger of some massive development to come.

Rather, looming above the St George’s Fireworks Factory ahead of a much-anticipated pyrotechnics display this weekend, the crane is part of the latest innovative trend making fireworks shows bigger and bolder than ever before.

Some 20 people have laboured for months on the structure, which the organising team have dubbed the ‘Tower of Diamonds’. Roughly 2,500 igniters have been loaded on to the tower, and when they all go off, the team promises, the result will be worth all the effort.

“This is something innovative for Qormi,” Jason Busuttil, a member of the April 23 Pyrotechnics Society, told the Times of Malta. “It was a big challenge, nearly a year of hard work for everyone involved. We’ve seen a simulation and we know it’s going to be a spectacular part of the show.”

This weekend’s show, which is part of celebrations for the feast of St George, will be only the third time Malta has seen this sort of towering vertical display, which the team considers the cherry on the cake of a show that has got bigger every year.

The society itself also continues to see an increasing number of members, all volunteers, even as it celebrates 90 years since its establishment. “More people see our shows every year and want to get involved; we hope it can keep growing in future,” said Justin Cauchi, who has been part of the society for 12 years and still considers himself “one of the young ones”.

As others toiled away in the midday sun putting the finishing touches on the fireworks for this weekend’s display, touching up wiring and taking notes on the performance of the petards in the noon ‘salute’, Mr Cauchi also mused on the changes he’s seen in the passion-driven hobby over time.

“It was a lot more dangerous in the past: you had to be very close to the fireworks and light them by hand,” he said.

“Today everything is computerised: you can add in different types of pyrotechnics and synchronise everything with music. It’s a lot safer and a lot grander as well.”