We also have a similar competition in Gatineau, but with less teams.
Same here in Sweden, provided that the category of “ordinary people” doesn’t include “kids with fireworks left over from New Year’s” and “kids who have already bought fireworks”.
It’s New Year’s Eve in Prague, or as they call it, “Sylvestr.” The Czech Republic was created on January 1, 1993, so it’s like New Year’s and our Fourth of July wrapped into one. Not sure if it’s changed now, but there when I was there, there were fireworks everywhere. In the town squares, in bars, everywhere, occassionally at each other. It’s crazy.
There aren’t any national-level fireworks days in Japan, but each area sets up their own local festival, usually during the summer, that includes a good-sized fireworks show. Go to the viewing deck of a tall building any Friday or Saturday night from July through September, and you can see starbursts going off somewhere over Tokyo. Sometimes in 4 or 5 places at once.
On an individual basis in Australia (ie, people letting them off in their backyards), there aren’t any that I’m aware of- but they usually put on a decent fireworks show for most major public events- Australia Day and so on.
The thing that I always smirk at is that I’m legally allowed to purchase as much ammunition and gunpowder as my finances allow- I could, by all rights, purchase a shipping container full of rifle cartridges and shotgun shells- but I’m not allowed to buy firecrackers or roman candles. AFAIK, I can’t even get a permit to do so without being a licenced pyrotechnician.
I think you can still buy fireworks in Canberra over the counter though, but I’m not totally sure about that…
You can for a few weeks before the day. I’ve never bothered to get a permit but I understand its a small fee ($7-$8) and you’ve got to be over 18. There are a load of restrictions that go along with it - which, of course, no-one takes any notice of.
That would be today… 