long, uncontrolled bursts

Several years ago we happened to end up in Heidelberg on the same day as its annual Fireworks Festival, which was a one-evening event featuring a small amount of fireworks to which a fair proportion of the town's inhabitants and tourist-content flocked. At the time it was hard to not involuntarily think "Hah. Call that a big display of fireworks?" but ever since, every August, during the period between nine o'clock and ten minutes past midnight, I wish that Edinburgh had the sense to keep its firework displays small and manageable in order to not render anyone witnessing them on a regular basis heartily sick of them. Several more years ago, during the year-early false millennial celebrations, several popular cities elsewhere in the world demonstrated a much greater capacity for artfully arranging fireworks around signature buildings, greatly unlike the chaotic burst-above-the-castle stuff available here.