Furthermore, I hope that this page can provide beginners in pyrotechnics a safe start by providing some practical information. I spend quite some time finding information and hope to save other people some time. Finally, there are some sections on miscellaneous pyrotechnics related subjects I found interesting. In the Netherlands experimenting with fireworks is considered really stupid. You can expect funny looks when you say pyrotechnics is your hobby here, and most likely you'll soon be known by the neighbourhood as half a terrorist.
Laws are very strict.
Fireworks may only legally be fired a couple of hours a year on new years eve, and only be owned and bought 3 days a year. This is partially the result of the annual campains of SIRE, an organisation concerned with spreading all kinds of propaganda for idealistic purposes. Occasionally they were quite funny as well, as the example on the right shows. The slogan doesn't translate well into English unfortunately. The majority of victims consists of what the internet pyro community refers to as 'kewl bomb dudes'.