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I shoot professional shows as well, and I think you can fire consumer shows
in similar fashion.
I mean, have an opening, a body, and a finale. You can open with a cake and
some shells that are fused together. If you want to be real fancy, and have
the money, you can end the opening with a row of mines (hard to find in the
consumer market) that are fused together. The row of mines is also very
good effective at the end of a song (if you have music) to punctuate things.
The body can have all your re-loadable, tube items, cakes, candles, and
maybe some fountains. The re-loads should all be pre-loaded in mortar racks
before hand for rapid firing. Every once in awhile, you can fire, what we
call in the professional display world as "flights". In the professional
world, they are chains of various sizes (more for smaller shells like 3in,
less for larger like 6in). They come that way from the manufacturer.
However, you can simply fuse some re-loads together. Maybe 5 sets of these-
whatever you want, and set them in racks by themselves. Fire them at
various times during the display.
As for candles, rockets and fountains- I don't like them much. If I use
them, they're definitely in groups. The candles can be good this way,
especially if they can be angled some way. to be real fancy here, you can
have a few of these groups angled in opposing directions, and create a criss
cross effect, then maybe shoot some shells above them. I only use fountains
to create a waterfall or to attach to a setpiece.
I've done a nice little waterfall, repeater combo that 's really nice.
During some slow music or little tribute, I had a waterfall, made from
several fountains or morning glory sparklers. I then shot a few "Niagara
Falls" repeaters over it. They're kind of like mines but then have a silver
rain like effect. This could even precede the finale.
The finale could be the usual barrage of shells and cakes all fused
together, with the best cakes towards the end. Also, some cakes that make
a lot of noise should be thrown in. There are some out there that are
louder then I thought would be allowed, but hey, use them if they're there.
If not, throw in some rolls of firecrackers. I've learned that people like
noise- at least in professional displays. Of course, use proper judgment
with consumer fireworks- depending on where you're shooting them. I could
probably write more, but that's enough input for one day.