Meet fireworks engineer Wilson Mao
Pyrotechnics engineer Wilson Mao has designed and staged every major fireworks display in the city since 1997. He tells Charley Lanyon how technology is changing the game
On three days of every year - January 1, Lunar New Year and National Day on October 1 - spectacular fireworks light up the Hong Kong skyline, drawing "ooohs" and "aaahs" from the thousands of onlookers.
Watching New Year celebrations on television, from San Francisco to Toronto, it is not uncommon to see footage from Victoria Harbour alongside local celebrations. Hong Kong's New Year fireworks are world famous, over the top and presented in eye-searing Technicolor, so it was surprising to find mastermind Wilson Mao seated at an empty conference table in an industrial building in Cheung Sha Wan, casually dressed in jeans and jumper.
Watch: New Year’s Eve fireworks display over Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour
This place, he assures me, is where the magic happens. A wall along one side of the table is dominated by some of the coolest drawings ever committed to a whiteboard: firework schematics. The far wall accommodates a large-screen television, and all-around there are first-place trophies from fireworks competitions all over the world.
The television, Mao says, is to keep an eye on the competition: "We look at Sydney. We look at London, all the major players, basically … like Dubai's last New Year countdown. That was big."