@jpmJoel Michael @0x47dfsleepy duck pond appreciator 🦆✨🏳️‍🌈 absolutely.

So, capital-S-Serious fireworks displays are normally programmed in and controlled by a software & hardware suite called FireOne, the industry leader.

The designer creates all the firing events on the FireOne cue timeline, which also has an audio track, and time code track.

The FireOne hardware controllers can be loaded with the firing showfile, and the playback triggered by GPS time, proprietary wireless bus, manual button, etc.

In multi-million-dollar events like Sydney NYE, the setup involves redundant GPS time source producing real time code into a media server. The media server has playback tracks for “show timecode” LTC, which is offset by 12h from real time because this allows controlled delay & cancellation of firing etc.
This show timecode is distributed over analogue radio, fibre audio transport etc. to all the stakeholders involved with audio playback, lighting, etc. so they can all be synchronised correctly (though that’s measured in milliseconds, not microseconds).

The show timecode crucially runs to redundant FireOne UltraFire playback servers, and they output on the proprietary wireless FireOne bus to the firing controllers spread out over the city. Each controller then runs its own two-wire bus to dozens of firing modules, with 8-32 capacitive firing outputs each, which are then broken out in wiring racks and connected to the thousands of electric matches.
I believe as backup the fireworks show file is loaded onto the firing controllers as well, with their own local GPS receiver, in case the main wireless transport fails.
In Sydney’s one, a human operator is stationed with each firing controller location (locked in a shipping container on a barge full of explosives… shudder) and is able to “key down” or “key off” the display on radio command, to reduce the radius of hazard in the case of maritime vessels entering the exclusion zones and risking being hit.
I’m not certain but I think separate controllers per shell size achieve this granularity.