King of the Castle planning for a dazzling finale

When Keith Webb presses the button on Sunday evening to launch the annual fireworks display which marks the end of the Edinburgh Festival, he'll set in chain a stunning sequence of colourful explosions - each meticulously timed to coincide with stirring sounds of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra - lighting up the city skies and visible for miles around.

The Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert has become a traditional closing act in the city's festival calendar, drawing 250,000 people eager to see one of the biggest displays in Europe.

Not that Cramond-raised internationally acclaimed pyrotechnics expert Keith expects to see much of it . . .

"I'll be in the bunker," he grins. "It's like an old Second World War stone bunker, very safe. It's the command position, where it all happens. Maybe if we have a soft passage of music - perhaps where we have fountains of fireworks go across the castle, I'll get a chance to open the doors, step outside and say 'Wow, it's working'.

"Otherwise, I reckon I'm going to be a bit too busy!"

Too bad that the man with arguably the best seat in the house, high within the castle's ancient walls where he used to visit as a child, won't see in all their glory the eruptions of mesmerising colours, sparkling showers of light and dramatic swirls he dreamed up months ago.

And, who knows, perhaps Keith, just ten when his uncle turned up at his parents' home with a 5 box of rockets and sparklers, cartwheels and Roman candles and set about treating the young Cramond Primary School pupil to one of his first fireworks displays, will never get the chance.

Earlier this year, the Bank of Scotland announced it is withdrawing its sponsorship after 16 years during which it has pumped 4 million into the event. The move, during harsh economic climes, has raised fears that next year's display may well turn out to be more of a damp squib than an extravaganza in light, sound and gunpowder.

Talks aimed at finding new sponsorship are under way, insists a Festival spokeswoman, but the bank's decision to pull out currently leaves a 250,000 funding gap

For display designer Keith, today busy preparing for what will be his 26th show by crawling over castle rocks and planting fireworks in place, the idea of Edinburgh at festival time without his whiz-bang explosions, is unthinkable.

"This is such a big event and I'm convinced it's not going to go away," he insists. "I'm sure a sponsor, maybe more than one, will take it over."

Uncertainty over next year might be waiting in the wings, but right now, Sunday's show has to go on.

And for Keith, 49, who has spent months with the Hollywood movie tunes which the orchestra will perform spinning in his head as he tries to figure out how to illustrate the dramatic music using four tonnes of explosives, it's the chance to showcase the ultimate pyrotechnic performance.

This year, more than 100,000 fireworks are at his fingertips, each set to erupt on the command of hundreds of electronic firing sequences, all linked by a complex network of cables and most controlled using computers from within Keith's "bunker".

"The days of running around with boxes of matches are gone," he grins. "But it's all still bloody hard work."

The tricky bit is ensuring it all erupts in perfect time to the music to create a seamless display. But exactly what he has planned for the orchestra's performance of Hollywood movie classics, Keith isn't saying.

"We always try to create something new and different. The hope is people will link the fireworks and the music with sad or funny or exciting points in the movies."

His team from pyrotechnic specialists Pyrovision arrived at the castle this week to fit the wires and structures needed for the show. But planning the display started two years ago when Keith began sourcing bigger and better fireworks in China and Italy.

"We're always looking for a new effect, a new colour or a new way of presenting it all," he explains. "By February we began talking about the music, and then in April we started planning it all out."

A crew of 15 also descended on the castle this week to install the fireworks, their number swelling to 30 on the night of the performance.

It's a far cry from that 5 box of fireworks which arrived at his parents Wilma and Alfred's Cramond home all those years ago.

"My Uncle Kenneth was working in Europe and came to visit, bringing with him the fireworks. In those days that would have been a lot of money to spend on fireworks. It was probably the first fireworks I really remember."

Keith lived in Cramond until he was due to start high school, when then the family relocated to Kent.

It means the festival concert is a special chance to return "home", to put on a show in a spectacular location close to his heart. Even if it does mean sending thousands of pounds up in smoke in the space of 45 minutes . . .

"Ultimately that's what fireworks are," he nods. "But for me, people need some happiness. They like to be out with their family or friends, watching something that makes them smile. They have a good evening, they go home and emotionally they feel better and positively charged by what they've experienced. If they go away on Sunday night feeling like that, then I've done my job.

BLAZE OF GLORY

THE Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert on Sunday is the traditional send-off to the festival season in the Capital.

The event begins at 9pm in Princes Street Gardens.

For any remaining tickets, visit www.eif.co.uk.

Non-ticket holders can watch the fireworks from Inverleith Park, which is ideal for families with young children.

Facilities there will include a large screen and loudspeakers, with a live link to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as it plays in the Ross Bandstand, in Princes Street Gardens.

There are many other vantage points across the city, including Calton Hill, which proves popular every year with the thousands of people who watch the spectacle unfold.