Montréal International Fireworks Competition Reports

Under Cover

Designed by Johan Holländer, soundtrack by Johan Holländer edited by Martin Igelström; FireOne firing with ~5600 cues

A constant theme of the 37th Edition of the competition is the weather. Every week the forecast starts out good, but then, for display day, there are warnings and threats. And so, Once again, mother nature decided to cause stress for the incontournables who venture to La Ronde for each display. The day started with severe thunderstorm watches and the first of two distinct lines of heavy showers formed around breakfast. The rest of the day was humid and dry but the threat level increased in the evening with tornado warnings in western Ontario and continuing severe thunderstorm watches and warnings for Montreal. At around 7:40, lightning could be seen and the sky became an ominous black as the storm started to approach La Ronde. I saw Johan and he seemed discouraged. I said I believed that there was a gap in the line and that we would be spared the worst of the weather, though he was more concerned that all the special FX products could be ruined. The storm approached and the winds and rains increased, then a lull around 8:30 before they increased again. By this time, the covers were off the ramps and Johan’s stress level seemed to increase. By 9:20, the rain was pouring down, but the radar appeared to be optimistic as the aforementioned gap seemed to be heading for us. And so it was – by 9:40, the rains had slowed to a trickle and we could see storms off in the distance to the left and right and an announcement that the severe thunderstorm warning was rescinded. The show started as planned, but, once again, issues with the countdown with an announcer, not a recording of Michel Lacroix, giving the wrong name for the theme and rushing the countdown, with the Grande Roue not participating.

The display began with 2 of the 3 positions on the back ramp firing, leading me to wonder if there would be weather-induced technical problems, but my fears were quickly assuaged as The Greatest Show segment built in ampleur et profondité[which is really profondeur in French], my brain struggling to think in any language due to the emotions of the unfolding spectacle. It was apparent within the first minute that we were witnessing something very special indeed and that, if the quality of the fireworks and design could be maintained for thirty minutes, we would have the winning show before us.

For the true pyrotechnicians in the audience, this was truly a special display. Johan had promised many specially saved products would be used and, for those of us who understood the profundity of this statement, it was a very emotional journey. We saw glorious 300mm shells presented so that they could be appreciated – the Yung Feng Nishiki Kamuro shell from the interview picture, manufactured sometime in the year 2000, its glittering fronds trailing all the way to the lake as tears of emotion poured down our awe-struck faces. These are moments that are hard to put into words. Flash-break golden willow shells from Zaragozana, never to be manufactured again, a terrible accident destroying the factor and killing 6 people back in 2015. Many other brilliant products from top-quality European manufacturers, all fired without repetition and in such a way that we could appreciate their beauty. Oh my goodness, what a feast for the eyes.

The pyrotechnical design was meticulous too. Every angle perfect, all the features of the site exploited to the max. Ramp 5 floating pontoons used very effectively together with nautical flares and barrages of massive nautical shells, particularly in the finale. An attention to detail in the small FX that were fired in the “radio static” portions separating out the three main sections of the display. Perfect synchronization throughout. Exquisite harmonization of colours and effects. We had moments of serene beauty – the flights of glittering gold double-ascension girandolas during “Stairway to Heaven”. Sky-filling barrages of great power and intensity. A really well crafted sound track. Simple design ideas executed brilliantly, such as the horizontal firing of bunches of candles across ramp 5. All these elements together worked brilliantly. I screamed more WOWs in this display than all the rest put together this year. And real tears of emotion too – at the serenity and atmospheric segments and the brilliant never-to-be-seen again products. A display with all the elements, including a Silver Rain finale! The audience, small in size due to the weather, still jumped to their feet and shouted and whistled their approval.

Johan had first contacted me in 2013 and we talked about what it would take for him to compete in Montreal. I offered advice and he said he read every interview and report I’d written, plus everything else on the forum. Clearly he had absorbed everything he read, but, more importantly, had the passion and vision to make it into a reality. Like the journey of Vander, winning Gold for Dragon Fireworks in 2018, we witnessed something very special last night.

The Age of Rock

Designed by Michael Lutz; soundtrack by Michael Luzt; FireOne firing with ~6200 cues

Once again, mother nature decided to cause stress for the incontournables who venture to La Ronde for each display, no matter the weather. After a beautiful, albeit cool, summer’s day, two distinct lines of heavy showers managed to form. One went through a couple of hours before showtime, but with the heaviest rains and lightning off to the west. By 9:45pm, the rain had stopped and there was sufficient wind to move the smoke. Just past half way through the display, a few sprinkles manifested themselves, but nothing to detract from the first competition display by Rozzi and Michael Lutz since 2015.

An over-enthusiastic volley of nautical shells burst on the lake in the minute before the countdown commenced, leading us to wonder if everything was OK. At 9:59:50 the countdown started as normal, though the light’s on the Grande Roue again didn’t cooperate for a moment or two at the stroke of 10:00. The display began very powerfully, with barrages of correctly-timed nautical shells and volleys of powerful and colour shells above, together with titanium salutes. Within the first 30 seconds or so, it was clear this was going to be a display most definitely in-contention for a Jupiter.

We were treated to an excellent and well-edited soundtrack featuring many well-known classics of the Rock-n-Roll era, together with some pieces with a lessor rock-nature. There was a good contrast between very powerful pieces of music, with the fireworks reflecting this really well. Synchronization was perfect throughout the display and used artfully to highlight the music when needed. It became quickly apparent the quality of the pyrotechnics used, both low-level and in shells. Vivid colours, powerful bursts, long-lasting effects and plenty of studatas, farfalles and other Italian specialities. Panzera has some really well-done ghost shells now and these were fired so we could appreciate the effect clearly. I was also pleasantly surprised to see effects, possible from candles, that were very reminiscent of signature “sky-mines” that Rozzi used to manufacture in the US.

The low-level effects in the display were particularly well done, with very good use made of ramp 5. We were treated to a pink heart fired from an array of one-shots (with heart-shaped shells above) as well as a couple of smiley faces. I also enjoyed fans of crackling comets that really augmented the distorted guitar in AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”. Hearing The Beatle’s “Here Comes The Sun” reminded me of the Gold Jupiter-winning display by Pains in 2007 together with the late Bob Burch’s famous photograph of a large sun set piece. Rozzi sequenced it differently, of course, but it was very effective with strobes representing winter and the ghost shells representing the sun. Serene moments were included with “magic carpet” nautical flares at several points, as well as the use of horse tails shells of different types. I enjoyed the back-and-forth horizontal firing use across ramp 3 in a couple of places too.

With such a good display, it’s hard to think of any negatives at all. I think maybe strobe shells effects were a little bit overused and some of the firing patterns across ramp 3 were similar from time to time. That said, the quality of all the products used was really high. The finale was a bit of an enigma though. It began fairly serenely but built into a thundering sequence of volleys of salutes, but at the very end, I was surprised there wasn’t a barrage of sky-filling studatas or some other large and dramatic effect. Instead, there was a modest barrage of mediocre shells that left a bit of an anticlimactic feeling given the intensity of the salutes that had preceded these. All that said, the audience jumped to their feet to give the team a well deserved standing ovation. There’s no doubt this display was very powerful and extremely well done – quite different from the also excellent HC Fireworks display by the Belgian team. At this point, it’s very hard to say which of those two is leading the pack. I suspect that it will be the choice of music that makes the difference. Certainly the final display from Team Finland has a high bar to surpass! What a great competition this is turning out to be!

150 Years of Passion

Designed by Guillaume Chartier and Simon David, Soundtrack by Guillaume Chartier; PyroDigital and FireOne firing with ~4200 cues

Montreal’s complicated summer continued with torrential rains for the morning of the display, though these cleared up to give a perfect evening for this first competition display for Canada’s oldest fireworks company, celebrating their 150th anniversary this year, since the inauguration of the competition 38 years ago in 1985. More on the weather later. Despite the rainy start to the day, the largest audience of the season, so far, was present, and enthusiastically cheered on the local team as they were presented on stage. This week, the protocol proceeded almost without incident, save for the lights on the bridge coming back on after the countdown for a minute or so as well as the Grande Roue flashing back fully on for a moment at the end of the countdown. A couple of minutes before the display began, the International Space Station flew over Montreal – a few minutes later and the crew would have possibly been able to watch some of the show!

The display began powerfully with dazzling fans of yellow-headed silver comets with volleys of large shells above. During this first segment it appeared that there might be minor problems with the cakes on ramp 3, with some positions not appearing to fire or finishing late – leading us to wonder if the morning’s heavy rains had had an impact. This first segment ended with large volleys of nautical shells, to cheers from the crowd as this is something that has been missing so far this year! In fact, many of the segments featured nautical shells, demonstrating that it is possible to use these even when the ramp 5 pontoons are in place.

There was a good variety of shells used during the display, but not quite the diversity used in the display by HC Fireworks. I found the display design was a little bit repetitive, with the same kinds of patterns and shells used several times. Also in some places we had effects from ramp 3 that were much brighter than the shells above or we would have loud cakes ending musical tracks that were more serene. Guillaume had mentioned in the interview that he has somewhat of an Asiatic style of design and this was evident a few times where a large shell would be the only item firing, allowing the audience to appreciate it without interference from lower-level effects.

The highlight of the display, for me, was the segment that used the Tanya Tagaq, an Inuk throat signer. The music was atmospheric and the fireworks included all sorts of sound effects with whistles and salutes and other noise makers of different types, including ground level salute (presumably manufactured by HFI as Guillaume had hinted during the interview). This was really something different to what we normally see.

Other portions of the display were less successful, with an imbalance between the different levels, with seemingly long periods of time with no low-level effects at all. I wondered if there were problems caused by the rain as ramps 3, 4 and 5 seemed to be less active than I’d have expected and at one point in the display we had more than 20 seconds of dark sky. Fortunately, everything seemed to work correctly for the finale, which was powerful, though the apotheosis was a tad short. The audience rose to their feet and cheered when the display was over.

Overall, this was a good display, but with a few weaknesses. I found the soundtrack edits sometimes clumsy between songs as well as pyrotechnic transitions, where recalcitrant cakes would continue firing – though this might have been related to the rain. Guillaume did tell me subsequently that around 30% of the products on ramps 3, 4 and 5 had not fired, even though everything had tested fine. This was a shame and might explain the feeling of imbalance between the levels that was apparent from time to time during the display. That said, I found the theme to be somewhat vague and we did have some repetition of patterns and effects. At the moment, HC Fireworks is the top contender for a Jupiter, with Hands and Macedos battling it out for the other two places. The remaining two displays will really have to fight to get onto the podium!

Legends

Designed by Cliff Hooge, Soundtrack by Cliff Hooge; FireTek firing with ~4000 cues.

A perfect summer evening was the backdrop to the debut display by the Belgian company HC Pyrotechnics. It appeared that there might not be enough wind, but, in the end, there was just enough and it was all in the right direction to move the smoke away from the audience.

After a false start caused by the sound controller at La Ronde (more on this later), the display got off to a good start to music by Nirvana. Good use was made of the floating pontoons, though it appeared technical problems caused the left most one to stop firing, fortunately this didn’t really detract from the design of the display at all. It quickly became apparent the high quality of the fireworks being employed in the display, with vivid colours, interesting effects and plenty of studatas. Some of the multi-colour changing pistil shells from Hamex were just stunning – I counted five or six colour changes – this is Japanese-level quality. The pyrotechnic design was well done, with perfect synchronization throughout and good use made of the width and height of the display.

Cliff had noted during the interview that this was really his first time doing a soundtrack with seamless edits between pieces of music, rather than pauses. It was executed really well and, even though the audio was seamless, there were appropriate pauses or rallentandos of the fireworks to give the appropriate breather between the different pieces of music. The theme itself, Legends, is not a complex one, but there was an excellent variation in rhythm and pace between the different pieces.

One of the highlights of the display was the firing of huge fireballs at the end of the “Great Balls of Fire” segment – the heat from which was felt very strongly by the audience. It’s rare that we see such large fireballs in Montreal and they were well done. This segment also included some very nice ghost-effect shells too. There were very serene segments, one outstanding one being “Imagine” where good use was made of kamuro horsetails in shells and bombette cakes together with some nautical flares. However, strobing horsetails were used in a few segments, leading to a bit of a feeling of repetition, though in one segment at least these had colour-changing effects.

The finale was powerful, building up in intensity until huge fans of crackling comets fired from ramps 3 and five as thunderous shells of the same burst above with volleys of massive salutes embedded as well. The decent-sized audience rose to their feet and gave the team a well-deserved standing ovation!

Overall, this was an excellent display that was well executed. Whilst there were a few small errors here and there, it was very well done with a very broad range of really high quality effects. There was a bit of repetition in places, but this didn’t detract from a good design with a nice balance of high energy and more serene pieces. The fireballs were certainly a stand-out that the audience really appreciated, as was the finale. Cliff said he set out to pick music such that everyone would recognize at least one piece and this was certainly the case, as witnessed by the audience reaction to each song used. This display is definitely a contender for a Jupiter, but there’s still three strong competitors remaining.

As mentioned at the start of this report, there was yet another technical issue with the sound control during the pre-show protocol. Everything was proceeding properly with the correct sequence of the usual atmospheric Vangelis pieces that really set the stage for the display. Usually, a couple of minutes before 10:00pm, Michel Lacroix introduces the company and talks about the display itself, then warns about smoke etc. and finally the countdown begins at 9:59:50. This time, the wrong recording was used and we heard Michel Lacroix giving the initial introduction. Then we heard the countdown overlay this and the music for the soundtrack start. One group of comets fired from the left-most ramp 5 position before the display was stopped, along with the music. After some time to resynchronize the timecode (there’s a couple of minutes required for this), the display commenced properly after the countdown without issue. I have never witnessed as many errors in this pre-display period as I have this year. Fortunately this week’s mistake didn’t detract from an otherwise excellent display. Let’s hope that the quality we have come to expect over the years is restored for the next display.

Tune In

Designed by Diogo Vasconcelos, Soundtrack by Diogo Vasconcelos; FireOne firing with ~3500 cues.

Summer 2023 continues to present challenges for pyrotechnicians and their audiences alike. During middle of the afternoon on display day, Environment Canada issued an unprecedented tornado warning for the island of Montreal. A “warning” means the threat has been observed, not that it might potentially happen. A couple of hours earlier, a tornado had touched down in a suburb of Ottawa, about 200km to the west of Montreal. Funnel clouds and winds of over 100km/h were observed at the west end of the island of Montreal and a tornado did touch down just off-island in Mirabel. A series of intense thunderstorms, including a supercell, swept over Montreal from around 4pm until 6:30pm. During that period, over 85mm of rainfall was recorded – pretty much the same as the average for the month of July (92mm). Many people thought it would be impossible to have a successful fireworks display that evening, but technical director of the fireworks competition, Paul Csukassy, together with his team, were well prepared. By the time 10pm arrived, we had almost perfect weather with decent winds, though a little bit too much towards the audience, but not enough to mar the display. After the presentation of the team, together with a somewhat uncoordinated and random selection of silence and the usual music, the display began on-time, with the big wheel correctly participating in the countdown this week.

The display began strongly, to the delight of the small, but enthusiastic, audience. Good use was made of the ramp 5 floating pontoons – their position quite close to the audience really adding an extra dimension. On the top of ramp 4, a large sign saying “On Air” together with a picture of a radio microphone, which was switched on during the narrative portions of the display, all whilst the fireworks and music continued. This narrative element was well-done and the soundtrack was well-mixed – much better than Macedo’s 2017 participation, where I noted the sound-editing as a weak point.

The first half of the display was very well done, with a good variety of effects and excellent synchronization and good use made of the display area. Pretty much all of the firing ramps worked well and it seemed the weather had only affected a very small number of items, which was quite amazing really. After this mid point, I felt the fireworks and effects became a bit repetitive, without too much variety, though I did enjoy the segment with strobing horsetails. For a few minutes between the mid-point and the final two segments, I did feel the design was not as strong as the first half of the display. The final two segments were very well done and the finale itself was very well crafted and powerful, building to a dramatic climax and ending in thunderous volleys of very large salutes. The audience jumped to their feet and gave the Portuguese team a well-deserved standing ovation. In 2017, Macedos took home the Bronze Jupiter and I think their entry this year was stronger than that award-winning one, so this augurs well for a podium position. Of course, it’s early days yet, but this was a very good display.

Ukrainian Fire for the hearts of Canadians

Designed by Tatjana Burdiak, Soundtrack by Tetiana Kuchuhura; FireOne firing with ~3500 cues.

The 37th Edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition is set against the backdrop of many difficult challenges. An ongoing war in Europe, not the first one since the competition started, but the most intense for some time; immense forest fires in Canada – already 9 millions hectares burned which is 11x the the 10 year averages expected by this date; unprecedented heat – the four hottest days globally were recorded this week alone. Not only global challenges, but the first competition without Martyne Gagnon as director and the first time ever that a display was cancelled. Last week’s opening show was not held due to a forecast of poor air quality due to the ongoing fires in the north of Quebec.

All of the events and challenges above contribute to setting the expectations for the first competing show – and the first time a team from Ukraine has been invited to participate. Previously, attendees would studiously look at the weather forecasts and radar for threats from storms or wind, but now we have to look at the air quality forecast too. A participating team from a county actively at war where the supply chain is completely disrupted. Dance of Fire have competed, and won, in various competitions before, but never one where they were unable to ship products from their home country.

Canada has a special place in the Ukrainian diaspora as it is home to the second largest population of Ukrainians outside of Ukraine itself. Indeed, the team consulted with friends and family who live here on what would be good Canadian music to include in the soundtrack.

Due to the cancellation of the opening show, the season’s normal protocol was moved to this week with the president of La Ronde, Sophie Emond, essentially taking on the role previously filled by competition director Martyne Gagnon. This threw the timing off a bit as the usual pre-display music that plays after the speeches but before the fireworks starts had a couple of minutes of silence. As the countdown terminated, the lights of the Grande Roue were not extinguished for a couple of minutes. Despite extreme heat and humidity and the flicker of lightning in the distance, a few drops of rain abated and we were left with a perfect evening with good wind strength and direction, no smog and a decent sized audience, but certainly not packed. Probably the heat and humidity as well as the decision to hold the displays on Thursdays rather than the usual Saturday and or Wednesday did not help, as witnessed by the announcement in the late afternoon of tickets on sale at half price.

The display itself was enjoyable and well synchronized and the soundtrack was very well appreciated by the audience. The mix of Ukrainian songs with both English and French Canadian tunes worked very well, better than I expected. Good use was made of the floating pontoons of ramp 5, though one of them appeared to be reversed, though this did not really impact the display. As anticipated, this was a “small” show and there was not a great variety of shells seen, nor many of large calibre. However, the one-shots and candles and effects cakes were of very good quality. Despite the show being somewhat small, it did not feel sparse and so there was always plenty of action, particularly in the final two pieces, with a good finale to the music Burn It to the Ground by Nickelback. The penultimate piece, by Eurovision Song Contest winners Kalush Orchestra was also very well done. The audience enthusiastically cheered the Ukrainian team and I suspect there were many of their compatriots in the audience. This really was a very good effort by Dance of Fire under what must have been very difficult circumstances and they should be congratulated heartily!

Politics is usually not part of a fireworks competition but did make a small appearance in this display, with a narration in English and French thanking the people of Canada for their support of Ukraine and a wish for victory and freedom. This is understandable due to the current circumstances, but I hope it does not become a regular feature. I expressed some disquiet a few years ago when a team competed under the China/Hong-Kong banner rather than just “China” – and we have seen cases where we had Canada/Quebec as a designation too. The good news, though, is that fireworks are a pan-cultural phenomenon and serious efforts are being made to have UNESCO declare them as intangible cultural heritage. Lets hope this succeeds and they continue to bring joy to their audiences, no matter where they are in the world.

60 Years of Unforgettable Music

Designed by Mark Kelsall; 6702 cues with FireOne firing.

This final competing display in the 36th edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition was both highly anticipated and blessed with the best summer evening of the competition so far. Pleasantly warm temperatures and ideal wind speeds and direction were the backdrop for this display which was touted to be the largest of the competition this year, possibly the largest in some years.

The soundtrack promised a selection of popular and well-known music spanning the decades from the 1960s up until the 2010s, though with no overall thematic connection between the tracks. After the usual countdown, we were given a presentation by a narrator introducing the company and the theme of the display. Unusually, this was done entirely in English, both at the start and the narrations that punctuated the transitions between the decades in the theme. I always find displays that start with black sky while there’s an initial narration engender a feeling of anticlimax – anyone who has been at La Ronde before should understand just how much anticipation Michel Laroix’s inimitable countdown from 10 is, so it’s a brave move to not start with something firing.

Once the display got going, it was immediately evident how many bright and colourful products were setup on ramp 3, but in terms of one-shots as well as in “slice” and other fast-firing cakes. Note-synchronized one-shot sequences ran back and forth across ramp 3 in an impressive way. This type of firing was used throughout most of the show – fast sequences of comets/one-shots and fan cakes, often with brilliant products, particularly the multi-colour changing mines with dazzling stars. These were augmented by short duration gerbs on ramp 5 as well as horizontal firing sequences of gerbs across ramp 3 and the use of flash pots on both ramps 3 and 5. Some excellent “laser” comet one-shots (where bright stars suddenly extinguish, given the effect of a laser beam) were also used. The main problem I found, however, was that these low-level sequences, as impressive as they appeared, where rarely supported by anything other than 3-5 relatively small calibre shells above. For most of the 32 minutes of the display, it was largely a low-level one-shot-and-slice-cake display. We did get some special effects in the form of sequenced star shots spelling out 60, 70, 80, 90, 00, and 10 for the decades of the theme as well as letter racks spelling out NOW during the Faded segment as well as hearts during Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Most of the show was focussed on the low-level sequence but we did have a finale-like sequence during Coldplay’s Fix You, which I enjoyed as it broke the monotony of the firing patterns that had been used so far. Then the announcer stated we had reached the final track with Andrea Bocelli’s Time To Say Goodbye – even though the published soundtrack indicated more music to follow. It was, indeed, an intense faux-finale, with sky filling thunderous volleys of gold kamuros. This was followed by a serene segment for God Save the Queen, with the only nautical products of the entire display consisting of some flares on the lake. Then a mix of some James Bond music and a transition into Paul McCartney’s Live and Let Die, which presented a similar style of finale to the Bocelli segment, but with crackling gold comets instead of kamuros and augmented by fan cakes of salutes below and some thunderous ground salutes suspended above the water on ramp 3.

The audience clearly loved this display and had cheered along at various points throughout and after the two finales. Unfortunately, I did not share their enthusiasm as I felt the display had been unbalanced throughout with very little interplay between the levels, repetition of firing patterns with weak shell support above (and repetition of the types of shells used). Synchronization was consistent throughout but I found that, for my taste, the synchronization point chosen did not match where I feel it should be. I had high hopes for the Darude Sandstorm segment (after having particularly enjoyed this as the finale of the 2003 display be Atlas, but the version we saw was almost devoid of shells and left me unsatisfied. I didn’t understand the way the faux and real finales were sequenced – I would have reversed their order and I found them powerful but this just enhanced the feeling, for me, that the display itself was unbalanced. Technically, the display went well with a few transposition errors here and there with slice cakes and one fireball, but given the number of cues, this is to be expected. Based on the audience reaction, this will do well, but was not to my taste at all unfortunately.

Dancing with the Stars

Designed by Nikola Koletcić; FireOne Firing (unknown number of modules/cues, assisted by Eric Cardinal)

For their highly anticipated second participation in Montreal, Mirnovec were presented with a perfect summer’s evening with pleasant temperatures, light winds (in the right direction) and a very large audience.

I had been concerned during my interview with the team that they were not as prepared as I had expected and, unfortunately, it appeared my concerns were justified. Many workers were present on ramp 3 after 8pm and the only items we could see on ramp 5 were small flocks of seagulls. Nikola had explained during the interview that he had spent about a month converting the script for the show from their PyroDigit firing system to FireOne (assisted by Eric Cardinal) due to the former being used for the inauguration of the Pelješac Bridge this same week. This conversion process was also probably responsible for some confusion in my mind a to the cue-count for the display. PyroDigit scripting is “line” based where each line can have many different things happening at the same time in different modules whereas my concept of a cue is such that one cue = one e-match. Nikola said there were 8500 products and 2250 “cues” – but these were lines in the script and so the cue-count is closer to the product count. All that said, the mapping of the script lines in PyroDigit is not at all straightforward. The bitter truth was the team ran out of time to set everything up as they had to put in a huge effort to re-labeling a lot of their products and re-addressing them for the FireOne firing modules. This is one unforeseen consequence of the pandemic; the show was designed for 2020, 2 years before the bridge was due to open.

The display we saw, then was not the one that had been designed. No ramp 5 at all and quite some amount of products not set up (Nikola told me at least 150 slice cakes were still on the truck at display time). What we saw in the end was a series of 13 individual displays for each type of dance music the soundtrack represented. After the main countdown, a single 300mm shell was launched before a narration started, with neither music nor fireworks. Given my comment in 2013 (“After the initial countdown, the audience held their collective breaths in trepidation as a narration started, but with no supporting fireworks”), I think this was a mistake. Given the clarity of the theme, most of the narration was redundant and the dark skies between each segment only served to introduce a feeling of anticlimax and interruption to the flow of the display. Personally, I want to be transported on a journey for 30 minutes and get into a different zone – these interrupts break that mental flow.

The firing patterns used were very good with great one-shots, fantastic colours and very dramatic and fast-paced at times, completely filling the display area from left to right. The problem, in my opinion, was that these became repetitive and somewhat detached from the feeling of the music. There was too little interplay between ramp 3 and the shells above – often times the shell firing patterns were just repetitive volleys of albeit very good shells. The problem with the shells, though, was the repetition of the type of shells used for different musical segments – one example of this being the very good ghost shells or strobing horsetails. It’s hard to know what hadn’t been setup and what was missing from ramp 5. The music for Zorba is very well known and builds in pace, but all we got were volleys of shells, leading to another anti-climatic feeling. We did see some interesting nautical effects and low-angle firings across the lake towards the audience, but no real nautical shells per se. It’s a shame that for the Blue Danube Waltz section that “water ballet” shells were not used, rather than the nautical flares.

The finale was great and built to a dramatic gold finish to cheers from the audience and a standing ovation for the team. Despite my criticisms above, it was a very good display but we’ll never know how it was really meant to me and so this is a real shame for the Croatian team who I know worked every hour they could to put on the display we saw.

Heart of Italy

Designed by Antonio Lieto; FireOne firing with ~7000 cues (assisted by Michael Lutz)

For the midpoint of the competition, muggy summer weather meant that the first radar consultation of the season was required prior to showtime. Threatening clouds did, indeed, produce some rain a couple of hours before the display, but these left the area with a rainbow in their wake.

The display featured a theme representing a diverse selection of Italian music, with a good range of rhythm and pace. Synchronization was flawless throughout, not only with the one-shots and mines, but also the shells including the many magnificent studatas. Ramp 5 was well used and contained five pontoons, not the three I had thought from the interview. There were some “magic carpet” type nautical flares but otherwise no actual nautical shells.

The quality of the fireworks was very high indeed, with a good range of effects and bright, long-lasting stars. The studatas were really excellent with great timing and we were treated to many different types of “horsetail” shells with various different effects. I particularly enjoyed the shells with heart-shaped pistils that were surrounded with dark stars that turned to crackle. Many shells had pistils, but typically we only had one or two colour changes (red, white, green being the most popular). The strobe shells and silver rain effects were also very good. There were some ghost shells, but they burst so large that it was difficult to appreciate, at first, that they were, in fact, ghost shells. It doesn’t help that the Montreal sky is not quite dark enough to really appreciate the effect.

The pyromusical design was very clean, though perhaps the firing patterns were a little bit conservative and predictable. This style did, though, all for the high-quality shells to be seen in all their glory. As expected, the finale was fantastic, building to a dazzling and deafening climax, leading to the audience stamping their feet in appreciation and standing up to give the team a well deserved standing ovation.

This was a really enjoyable display with a strong soundtrack with a good variety of rhythm and pace. There were a few errors in the setup, where we’d see the wrong shell firing from one position and a couple of places where the wrong produce was used in a sequence of one-shots. These are very minor quibbles though. The brilliance of the fireworks, together with the intense finale definitely put the Italians on the podium at this stage in the competition, along with Hungary and Canada. That said, there’s still two strong competitors ahead! What a competition it’s shaping up to be this year!

Quebec Myths and Legends

Designed by Patrick Chandonnet; FireOne firing with 3800 cues

A perfect summer’s evening, with the warmest temperatures (around 28C) of the competition so far this year, welcomed the debutant Canadian team from Shawinigan, Quebec. And what a debut display it was, with an excellent performance! I suspect that it was a busy setup again as the final fireworks, atop a large cherry-picker, were installed just an hour before showtime.

I was a bit concerned that a display with a large amount of narration could feel disjointed or anti-climactic, but Bryan Perro’s explanations of each of the legends that formed the theme was very well integrated into this almost 34-minute long display. Beginning with a 12″ shell, the first part of the display was the most serene, but the overall feeling bold and bright, enhanced by the most epic soundtrack since the joint display be fellow Canadian Royal Pyrotechnie / Fireworks Spectaculars on the same date (July 16th) in 2014 – a display that was awarded the Gold Jupiter.

The large array of manufacturers present in Orion’s arsenal meant that they essentially achieved almost no repetition of fireworks during the display, though there were some design elements that were reused from time to time. Great use was made of all the space with the full horizontal and vertical aspects of the display area utilized completely. One-shot sequences produced well defined “wave” and “mountain” effects and the angles were very precise giving a clean design feel. Fantastic nautical shells of 6″ calibre bust dramatically in the lake, causing me to exclaim a large “wow”. There were quite a few wow moments as the epic music allowed for several mini-finales during the display.

The range of effects used was impressive with some really fantastic “ghost” shells with very well defined colour animations. Lots of really good studatas, too, and many other high-quality shells, especially the beautiful and dazzling strobing horsetail shells. We were also treated to some double-ascension girandolas as well as note-synchronized flash pots. The cherry-picker was used as a high platform to launch a waterfall for the segment representing “Our Lady of Montmorency” (a waterfall just outside of Quebec City), but I found the fall was rather narrow for the distance from the audience and not quite as bright and sparkly as it should be. The fan cakes fired from either side of the cherry-picker’s basket did give a good effect.

The all-gold finale was rather longer than previous competitor, Nuvu’s, and brought the display to a powerful end, though it lost a bit of power for a few moments before the ultimate end. The large audience gave the Canadian team a very well deserved standing ovation, stamping their feet loudly on the metal grandstands.

Overall, this was an excellent display indeed with a good clean design making use of the entire site. I found the soundtrack to be powerful, but this was also a downside – it was just a bit too epic, allowing for few segments that were more serene, or limiting how serene they could be before the music rose to epic levels again. There were a couple of small mistakes where the wrong set of shells on one side appeared, but these didn’t distract from what was a truly excellent and enjoyable display. The level of the competition (ignoring Mexico) this year is already very high with this and the previous Hungarian display deserving of a place on the podium.

Hungarians in the Big world Evolution of the Hungarian Music Culture!

Designed by Anikó Tóthné Seres, Soundtrack by Ferenc Tóth; Galaxis firing with 80 modules and ~6000 cues.

A pleasantly cool summer’s evening was the backdrop for the Hungarian team’s debut display in Montreal, though, unfortunately, the light winds were not always in a good direction, leading to a murkiness in the early part of the program as smoke made its way directly to the audience.

It was evident that a complex setup had been achieved, though not quite everything that was described in the interview was actually present on site. I had the feeling when I conducted the interview that the team were being very ambitious. Five days of setup sounds like a lot in theory, but it goes fast. Indeed, even an hour before showtime, workers could be seen on ramp two finalizing the installation of what had promised to be three towers, but turned out to be two. Two large set pieces which Ferenc had said he might include, if there was time, were not there. All that said, the lake did have the promised five large pontoons and two columns of 15 smaller ones, extending from the ends of ramp three perpendicular to the audience and linking up to the row of larger ones.

As the display began, it became very quickly evident that all of the pyrotechnic material used was of very high quality with vivid colours, long burn-times and complex and varied effects, in stark contrast to the previous Mexican entrant. Despite the wind direction and early smoke in the display, it was still vivid and bright. Various special effects were used during the display. During the Sound of Music piece “letter mines” were used to highlight the Do Re Mi lyric. Other special effects included note-synchronized flashpots; sequenced flights of stars from ramp 3 making patterns, including the “69″ in the Summer of ‘69 Bryan Adams song as well as pattern shells with colour changing stars.

The extensions to ramp 3, formed of two columns of 15 pontoons added and interesting extra dimension to the display, but also some constraints as it appeared that most of the low-level action was contained within these boundaries. We have definitely had visually wider displays in the past, but these extra pontoons still added a certain depth to the display. The two towers were not used so many times during the display and, due to their distance from the audience, did not add as much as might be expected. To be effective I would think they would need to be at least 3x higher – which is really impractical.

The soundtrack was excellent and very well edited. The only negatives were that sometimes the fireworks would stop before the music. It was clear that pauses between pieces had been deliberately added and these were effective at allowing the smoke to clear – just that in a couple of places they were perhaps slightly too long (at least it felt that way when the fireworks stopped before the music). The synchronization with the music was very good throughout – with lots of note-synchronized effects and runs of one-shots complementing the music very well and there was a great variety of intensity and pace. The Hungarian Folk Song “Spring Wind”, done largely in gerbs and one-shots on the pontoons and ramp 3, with support from the towers was one of the stand-out segments.

Note must be made, again, of the very high quality of all the products used. Shells with two pistils, all colour-changing. I think I counted up to 5 or 6 colour changes in some of the largest shells. Lots of really good farfalles and studatas as well as colour changing horsetail shells. Even the dim gold effects were bright and sky-filling, enveloping the whole site and trailing to the lake. One small criticism, though, sometimes there were two many different levels of effects/shells at the same time and this lead to some of the really beautiful large shells being hidden by lower-level ones, leading the display to appear less “clean” design-wise than it could have been. As the shells were particularly good, this was a shame sometimes.

During the interview, Ferenc told me he had dreamed of coming to Montreal for more than 20 years, but that his company had to learn to “pull up their trousers” first. I think they certainly achieved a very high quality display indeed, especially given their debutante status. I think they also learned that the site is bigger on the ground than it is on paper and that they really had to work very hard to get everything assembled. The end result was definitely worth the efforts of the team and the audience gave them a well deserved standing ovation afterwards. They have set the bar really high and are definitely a contented for a podium position.

Bells and Drums

Designed by Patrick Brault; FireOne Firing with 90 32-cue modules and ~2600 cues

The first in-competition display of the 36th edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition was blessed with perfect weather for the setup, but, unfortunately, the large audience was subjected to light winds blowing smoke almost directly at them. The smoke contributed to making the display appear somewhat dim, but more on that later.

I did not have very high expectations for this display. Despite a potentially interesting and rhythmic soundtrack, the design, as presented to me during the interview, appeared simplistic and conservative. This was surprising as the designer is very familiar with the site but didn’t appear to want to push any creative boundaries, eschewing the use of ramp 5 and nautical products, save for some “magic carpet” type flares/fountains. Often a designer will avoid nautical products when using ramp 5 so it was disappointing that, without ramp 5 present, there were so few nauticals used. As was evident from the setup, the design was simplistic with a relatively low cue count by recent standards and relatively few positions (seven) on ramp 3. Sometimes this is offset by using a wider variety of firing angles, but this was not the case in this display.

On the pyrotechnic side, despite the relatively simple design, the display was dense and active most of the time, with some good note-synchronized sequences (though with limited variety in effects and patterns used). The biggest issue I found was the quality and variety of the products used. First of all, there were many low breaks or shells that fired as mines – more in this display than I recall in any other over the past 29 years of covering the competition. Secondly, many of the larger shells broke with poor symmetry or with few stars lighting. Thirdly, many of the shells were either dim and/or had weak colours. It was clear that the Chinese shells used in the display were, in general, brighter and of purer colours than the Mexican products. The variety of products used was also rather limited with much repetition of effects throughout the display and a somewhat chaotic mix with many assymetries. Even the one-shots were largely of mediocre quality with inconsistent heights and, again, weak colours and brightness, though some were better than others (such as the whistles and salutes).

The soundtrack was enjoyable and approached what appeared to be the finale with AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells. This was enjoyable with a thunderous blast of hundreds of salutes fired simultaneously. Then the designer appeared to completely lose the plot with the bizarre final two minutes to Luis Marino’s Chanteur de Mexico. After the energy of Hell’s Bells, this fell completely flat with very few shells fired and a completely out of place piece of music. It caused a great feeling of anti-climax, even though there was another volley of salutes at the end and then a few random large shells. It was as though the designer wanted to sabotage any chance of winning. Very bizarre.

Back in 2012 when Sirius last competed, as well as Archangel in 2015, one of the goals was to showcase the production of Spanish-type shells of large calbre in Mexico, to circumvent the increasing difficulty of shipping anything over 6″ calibre from China. Being able to service the North American market by road transport seemed like a great idea. Tragically, if this Sirius display was supposed to showcase these products (forgetting about the design of the display and the soundtrack ) then it was a failure. They were largely of poor quality: dim effects, asymmetrical breaks, low quality (too many low breaks or stars not igniting). A few were of reasonable quality (such as some of the farfalles and some gold glitter effects as well as the titanium salutes), but otherwise, they missed the mark. Of course, the direction of the smoke made the shells appear dimmer and less saturated than ideal conditions would have, but the other issues were definitely present.

All that said, the audience did enjoy most of the display so it’s a shame the deficiencies mean that it will be very unlikely to appear on the podium.

Three years after the 35th Edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition concluded, and with two years of an ongoing pandemic responsible for this delay, perfect weather was on hand for the return of the fireworks to La Ronde. A show, honouring essential workers, had been promised for Labour Day weekend in 2021 and was preceded by several “surprise” shows in different Montreal arrondissements, but this was cancelled as the ongoing public health conditions started to deteriorate towards the end of summer, to the great disappointment of both the public and the organizers. Even back in Spring 2020, there was a hope that, by the summer, conditions would have improved enough to hold the competition, but this was not the case.

So in a La Ronde first, the opening show of the competition (a feature that was put in place in 2014 for the special 30th edition) was preceded by a rework of this special display that had been scheduled for Labour Day weekend 2021. As the theme had originally been a tribute to essential workers in Quebec, the soundtrack already featured renowned Quebec artists and so the new title, Je Me Souviens, was both appropriate as a memorial for everyone who had lived (and died) through the pandemic, as well as a nod to the June 24th St Jean Baptiste Fête Nationale celebrations. A special 10 minute long drone show, put on by Patrice Guy’s North Star Drones company was also something new for the audience in Montreal. I was happy it was a separate show, rather than interwoven with the fireworks. This was also a pandemic tribute and thrilled the audience.

Both displays were designed by GFA Pyro’s Eric Cardinal with the pre-opening show’s soundtrack being also crafted by competition technical director, Paul Csukassy and the actual opening show’s music being put together by Eric.

Perfect weather was present for both displays, together with the voice of the fireworks, maître de cérémonie M. Michel Lacroix. And so a familiar and comforting pre-display ceremony in both cases, with the usual atmospheric music of Vangelis setting the atmosphere.

Both displays were good, but I found the real opening show, A Tribute to Prince, to be the better of the two. The soundtrack was excellent and Eric made good use of ramp 5 (the floating pontoons) to add extra dimension to the display as well as some great note-synchronized letter mines firing 1, 2 then 1 2 3 4 during the Raspberry Beret track. The audience was especially enthusiastic throughout the entire display and gave the GFA team a well deserved standing ovation at the end.

It was great to be back, front and centre, reporting on the competition again. A feeling of normality in these still abnormal times. The joy was palpable for all to see and feel. Summer had returned to Montreal with the fireworks!

Official Results of the 35th Montreal International Fireworks Competition

• Gold Jupiter: Grupo Luso (Portugal)
• Silver Jupiter: Howard and Sons (Australia)
• Bronze Jupiter: Atlas Pyrovision Productions (United States)
• Soundtrack: Atlas Pyrovision Productions (United States)
• Green achievement: Howard and Sons (Australia)

Once again this year, the top shows also had the highest cue counts. I suspect South Korea, who also had around 5500 cues, were in 4th position with the final two competitions using around 1/3 fewer than these. In my opinion, it was very close between the Gold and Silver winners and I am happy with the results. This was a perfect year for weather – no rain or storm during any display and even the least cooperative wind didn’t detract from any of the displays too much. Kudos to the pyrotechnic crew at La Ronde for a season with very few technical problems-  not easy when the displays feature such large cue counts. Let’s not forget that Gold Jupiter winning displays of only a few years ago used fewer than half the number of cues compared to displays today. After the awards ceremony, which also featured a 30 minute performance by local artist Gregory Charles, it was announced that the 36th edition of the competition will be held next year. We were then treated to the closing display, put on in collaboration with Rozzi’s Famous Fireworks and Panzera SRL.

25 years of Entertaining You in Style

Designed by Michael Lutz; products from Panzera SRL; FireOne firing with 185 modules and ~6000 cues

The closing show was blessed with perfect weather and probably the largest audience of the season. We were treated to a very high quality display indeed with brilliant products from Panzera featuring dazzling colours. The use of ramp 5 was particularly well done – filling the space in front of the audience to great effect. Despite the fairly complicated soundtrack featuring Quebec hits from the past 25 years, the fireworks matched the music well and we were treated to a great variety of rhythm and pace, building to a traditional Italian finale. Throughout the show the audience enjoyed the excellent cylindrical shells Panzera is famous for – especially their beautiful farfalles, and, new for this year colour changing “disco ghost shells”.

I would like to thank the Karina Thevenin, director of Public Relations at La Ronde, for her hospitality and, of course, competition Director Martyne Gagnon and technical Director Paul Csukassy for their time and gracious hosting once again. Finally, kudos to everyone on the permanent pyrotechnics crew at La Ronde for their hard work and dedication, especially given the short timespan of this year’s competition. To stage 8 pyromusicals that require 5 days setup each in only 30 days is quite remarkable! Thanks also to my fellow enthusiasts for their dedication and support! Last but not least, unconditional thanks to all the teams who worked so hard this year to participate and dazzle the audience!

Shapeshifter

Designed by Stuart Bensley; FireOne Firing with 230 32-cue modules and 6017 cues

Howard and Sons were lucky to have perfect weather during the setup of their fourth show in Montreal and, despite the forecast of calm winds, were lucky to have just enough wind to move the smoke from the low-level parts of their display (upper winds were stronger so the shells were always clearly in view). A little bit more would have been better, but the lower areas were visible well enough most of the time.

It was clear after the first segment had concluded that this was going to be a formidable display. The special circular ramp 5 was put to good use, though the depth of the effect wasn’t quite as dramatic as I had hoped, it was still clearly a different dimension. The use of this ramp allowed all sorts of complex firing patterns and sequences, producing many different shapes – very appropriate given the title.

The soundtrack was well done and cleanly edited. Much of the music I wasn’t overly familiar with, but that didn’t detract from the display at all. A nice variety of intensity and pace was present and this was well reflected in the accompanying pyrotechnics, though maybe some horse-tail type effects were used just a little bit too often.

One thing was clear – the quality and brightness of the products used was outstanding and the choice of colours was very appropriate for the music used too. Lots of interesting effects with whirling serpents hurled towards the audience as well as fan slices (in a similar manner to the effect produced by Dragon Fireworks last year). The display area was used to the maximum, though I was disappointed there were no nautical products at all. Given how close the pontoons were to ramp 3, I would have thought that we could have had some nautical shells in the finale.

Ramp 4 was used well as a complement to ramp 5 – also producing circular effects and I think this display had one of the best combined uses of these two firing positions. Synchronization was flawless throughout – and there were many note-synchronized segments. I did feel, though, that there were places in some of the music where some visible choreography was called for but it wasn’t present, though I can’t recall exactly where I had this feeling.

The finale was magnificent in the way the different layers were used and was one of the largest and most enjoyable of the competition this year. The audience, which appeared to be the largest of the season, rose to their feet and gave the team a well deserved standing ovation. For me, this was clearly the top show this year. It will be interesting to see how the jury reacts, particularly as some of the music was unfamiliar and not clearly related to the theme. We did, however, see many different and interesting shapes!