ĐÀ NẴNG — Tickets for the 2017 Đà Nẵng International Fireworks Festival are available at seven trading centres and venues in the central city, HCM City, Hà Nội, Lào Cai and Quảng Ninh Provinces.

The festival’s organising committee said ticket sales were launched last week for residents and tourists planning to visit the central city between April 29th and June 29th.   

Prices run from VNĐ300,000 to VNĐ500,000 for each night performance on the Hàn River banks.

The festival orgnaniser, Sun Group, said each night performance will reserve 13,000 tickets, including 8,000 seats, at four main stands on April 29th, May 20th and 25th, June 3rd and 6th.

Huỳnh Văn Hùng, director of the central city’s Culture and Sports Department, said the biennial fireworks competition will be promoted as an official culture and tourism festival.

Eight teams – from Austria, Italy, Australia, United Kingdom, Switzerland, China, Japan and host Việt Nam – will compete in five performances on the Hàn River over a two-month period.

Host Đà Nẵng and Fireevent Die Feuerwerker from Austria will perform on the opening night on April 29th, while the Tamaya Katahara Fireworks team from Japan and Sugyp from Switzerland will do the second night on May 20th.

China’s Dancing Fireworks Group and Pyrotex Fireworx team from UK will spark the third night performance on May 27th. Howard&Sons Pyrotechnics from Australia and Italy’s Martarello will stage the fourth night performance on June 3rd.

The best teams will compete in the final rounds on June 24th.

Lê Quý Dương, the festival’s general director, said the event would attract over 2 million tourists. It will also include barefoot beach races, food and beer festivals, street music performances, Chăm Culture performances and stone sculpture exhibits.

The 2017 fireworks festival will be titled Shining Ngũ Hành Sơn, or Marble Mountains - Da Nang’s iconic landmarks believed to represent five basic elements - metal, wood, water, fire and earth, according to traditional philosophy.

Đặng Minh Trường, general director of Sun Group, the fireworks festival organiser, said the event would be a prelude to the 2017 APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation) Summit in Đà Nẵng in November.

Trường said he hoped the Đà Nẵng festival would soon become one of the best known in the world, along with those in Canada, Korea, Japan, and Macao.   

In 2015, five teams - from South Africa, Australia, Poland, the US and Việt Nam - competed in two nights of fireworks competition.

The festival was held annually from 2008 until 2013, then biennially from 2015.

Teams from the US and Italy won twice, respectively, while Canada, China and France clinched the title once.

The city received an award for Asia’s Leading Festival and Event at the World Travel Awards ceremony last October.

Đà Nẵng was also named among the Top 10 Holiday Destinations in Asia by Smart Travel Asia – an online tourism magazine for Asia last November.

Last year the city hosted 5.6 million tourists, of who 1.6 million were foreigners.

The city has reserved more than 16,000 rooms in preparation for the fireworks festival. — VNS