AusLeisure

Three generations of the famous Foti Fireworks family will be working on Sydney's New Year's Eve celebrations for the first time, with recent high-school graduate Elena Foti, joining her father and grandfather on the world-famous pyrotechnics displays.

This will be the 13th year the Foti family has created the City of Sydney's 9pm Family Fireworks and Midnight Fireworks Displays, and Elena has usually watched with excitement from the sidelines.

She explains "when you tell your friends that your dad's the fireworks guy from Sydney New Year's Eve, they're like 'wow that's so crazy, your dad's got the best job ever'.

"It's pretty exciting and now that I'm 18, I'm getting into it. I'm actually working with Dad and the rest of the family members.

"At the moment I'm at the factories in Leppington, in Sydney's south-west, doing a lot of administration work and when they start setting up on the barges at White Bay I'll be going down and helping them."

Elena will join her father, NYE Fireworks Director Fortunato, 47, grandfather Sam, 74, and uncles Tino, 48, and Vince, 64, as well as other relatives, Giovanni, Anthony and Angelo, in putting together the fireworks, which are seen by about one billion people around the world.

The Foti family has been in the pyrotechnics business in Australia since arriving from Italy in the 1950s but surprisingly Elena was always frightened of fireworks as a child.

Elena adds "believe it or not I used to be scared of fireworks when I was little the noise used to frighten me.

"We used to have quite a few cracker nights when I was younger and I distinctly remember one time at my grandmother's house where my Dad put this suit on, called Dominic the donkey, and firecrackers came off it.

"I was fascinated, but I was scared for him, too."

Elena graduated this year from high school, but is yet to decide whether she'll follow in the footsteps of her famous family.

She concludes "I can technically make fireworks now because I'm 18, but I'm thinking of going to university next year instead.

"But my brother Salvatore, 12, will definitely go into the business and he keeps telling my mum he's leaving school to go do fireworks."

A smartphone app for Sydney's New Year's Eve celebrations can be downloaded at www.sydneynewyearseve.com/app 

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