A GROUND-BREAKING display of fireworks set to music will light up the skies of Blackburn as part of a £7,500 display.

A team of experts from national display firm Millennium Pyrotechnics will descend on the Cathedral ground for the show, which will feature hundreds of fireworks.

And for the first time, the display, part of the build up to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's annual carol service, will be set to music using a state-of-the-art system, to time the fireworks to the tunes.

Each change in the music will be mirrored to the split second by the firework display.

Organisers believe the show, now in its 12th year, will be the best yet.

Salisbury-based Millennium Pyrotechnics are the brains behind some of the biggest fireworks displays ever seen, and recently staged the country's largest 'pyro-musical' in the grounds of Alton Towers theme park.

Organiser Phil Ainsworth, of Ainsworth's jewellers, said: "We are going to be playing a range of Christmas songs and have the fireworks firing so when there is a crescendo the fireworks get stronger."

This year's show, to run before the annual carol service at the cathedral on Wednesday, December 15, will last for about 20 minutes. The sum puts the cost of the firework display at an average of £375 per minute.

The firework display starts at 6.30pm, followed by the carol service at 7.30pm.