Apparently with the big fireworks shows, at least over here, it's also a study for the manufacturers to see how their new creations actually work. It's not like they can just go out back behind the plant and blow a few off one evening. I'd never heard of a show dedicated to that purpose though. Sometimes there are duds and nobody claps except the drunk people. You'd think they could use computer generated models to see what the results are going to be, like they do now with nuclear weapons.