You can get tickets up to about six months in advance. Once the schedule is announced, the tickets are available. And you're right, there are no tickets left at all for tonight.
I don't write reports for the closing show because I want to sit back and fully enjoy the display - I feel I deserve it!
As for special Jupiters, there haven't been any awarded since 1999. They are generally for something special, not for doing a good display. Thus, in the past, the head of safety was awarded a special Jupiter; Kimbolton were awared a special Jupiter for their contribution to the deveopment of fireworks (their founder, Rev. Ron Lancaster, has written one of the pyrotechnical "bibles" - pun intended

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As for closing the forum, no it will not be closed. I'd planned on having a forum in the past but didn't have time to organize its installation and setup. Now that I have (and the task was made easier by the website redesign I did last year to use cascading style sheets), it will be kept open permanently. So check in as often as you want. You may also want to consider registering, then you can be in the "roll of honour" for the being one of the biggest contributors to the dicussions. The way it is set up presently is that anonymous posters don't figure in the statistics.
Next year's schedule will be posted as soon as I receive it - probably the end of January 2004.
Paul.