Fireworks spectacular planned for Tauranga community event

Welcome Bay Lions Club fireworks event chairman Charles Harrison at the venue Tye Park, with club president Suez Reid and Welcome Bay Community Centre manager Anna Larsen. Photo/George Novak

The skies above Welcome Bay will explode in a dazzling display of pyrotechnics later this year to mark the finale of a major new community event for Tauranga.

Organised by the Welcome Bay Lions Club, the November 3 fireworks spectacular will fill the gap left since St Mary's Primary School ran its last public display in 2015.

Club vice-president and event organiser Charles Harrison said they wanted to get the whole community involved in the event that was planned to kick off at 4pm on Tye Park with a big variety of stalls and family fun attractions.

"Hopefully it will be a great spectacle," he said.

The event has received a huge kick-start by the Tauranga City Council donating $10,000 from its events fund.

"It was absolutely amazing - it will help us an awful lot to make the event a fantastic day for everybody."

It meant Lions would not be left carrying the cost for one of its biggest projects in more than 30 years.

Mr Harrison was the perfect choice to head the organising team. He started the Matua School fireworks display that grew to become the large public display on Fergusson Park.

He has booked Hamilton-based professionals to take responsibility for the pyrotechnics.

The fireworks will be set up on a barge anchored off Tye Park, ready for the moment when it is dark enough to let them off.

His philosophy is that it's better to have public fireworks events rather than mums and dads spending hundreds of dollars on backyard displays.

"It's safer and a better spectacle."

Although the bay is a natural amphitheatre for thousands of Welcome Bay residents, the Lions Club hopes most will come down to Tye Park to get a close-up view of the display and enjoy the stalls and the club's quick-fire raffles.

They have had a lot of interest from food stall operators.

"We are still in the process of planning and we are open to anyone wanting to put a stall on the park," said Mr Harrison.

The Welcome Bay Community Centre has partnered with the Lions to help ensure the event is a success. "It is going to be great," centre manager Anna Larsen said.

Mr Harrison said it was not an event that one small committee could handle and it needed a number of others to help out. Health and safety was always a big issue with fireworks events and the club had engaged people familiar with these requirements.

Other council-funded community events
- Welcome Bay Family Music Festival
- Wonderland Festival and House of Cards Exhibition
- Papa-Moa's Teddy Picnic
- CBD Trustpower Santa Parade
- Night Owl Cinema Summer Series.