For venues and planners

What you get before the day

Approving an effect you have not seen before is a reasonable thing to hesitate on, so ask the operator for paperwork that removes the guesswork rather than asks for trust. A certificate of currency confirming current public liability cover, a risk assessment written for each specific effect (clearance, headroom, ignition source, ventilation, power, crowd distance, pack-down), and a method statement naming who fires what, from where and on what cue. Ask for all of it once the date is confirmed, not the week of. The full breakdown of each document is on safety and insurance, and the sequence it fits into is on how it works.

The effect list and the licence position

None of the effects below need a pyrotechnician's licence under current South Australian law, because none of them contain an explosive or a pyrotechnic composition:

• Cold spark machines: no licence, no flame, no smoke.
• Dry ice low fog: no licence. Sinks rather than rises, so it needs ventilation, not a fire clearance.
• CO2 jets: no licence. Gas cylinder handling and crowd distance are the real considerations.
• Confetti and streamer cannons: no licence when fired by compressed air, CO2 or an electric launcher. A pyrotechnic-charge confetti device is a different category and is not something we arrange.
• Sparkler send-offs: no licence. Governed by your own terms and by Total Fire Ban days.

Outdoor fireworks and indoor close-proximity pyro do need a pyrotechnician's licence. We do not hold one, and that work is referred to a licensed South Australian operator rather than being quietly run without one.

No mess, unlike confetti

A cold spark unit produces a granule burn that leaves no confetti on the floor, no glitter in the carpet and no rice to sweep up. That is the practical argument that matters most to whoever cleans the room afterwards, and it is a genuinely different position from confetti, which several Adelaide venues either charge a cleaning fee for or ban outright. See Adelaide venue effects policies for the actual published clauses.

The smoke-detector question, answered directly

Cold spark produces no smoke, so it does not trigger an optical smoke detector the way a haze or smoke machine does. Dry ice sinks rather than rises, which is why it also stays below a ceiling-mounted sensor. Glycol haze and smoke machines are the effects that trigger alarms, and they are the reason most venue terms name smoke machines specifically rather than banning effects in general.

When the answer is no

Some published bans, read literally, leave no room for an exception. A hard ban on dry ice, smoke and naked flame does not automatically extend to cold spark, but the question belongs with the venue in writing rather than assumed, and where a venue says no, that is the answer the couple hears. We are not in the business of arguing a coordinator into a decision they are not comfortable with.