Tickets for the 2017 Da Nang International Fireworks Festival are available at seven trading centres and venues in the central city, Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Noi, Lao Cai and Quang 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 VND300,000 to VND500,000 for each night performance on the Han 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.
Huunh Van Hung, 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 Viet Nam – will compete in five performances on the Han River over a two-month period.
Host Da Nang 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.
Le Quy 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, Cham Culture performances and stone sculpture exhibits.
The 2017 fireworks festival will be titled Shining Ngu Hanh Son, or Marble Mountains - Da Nang’s iconic landmarks believed to represent five basic elements - metal, wood, water, fire and earth, according to traditional philosophy.
Dang Minh Truong, 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 Da Nang in November.
Truong said he hoped the Da Nang 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 Viet 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.
Da Nang 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.