Montréal International Fireworks Competition Reports

I met with Yoon Duyeon and Park Yuoyong, representing Hanwha Corporation of South Korea for the company’s 4th participation in Montreal, but this teams’ first.

Hanwha, founded in 1952, is the largest fireworks company in South Korea and previously competed in Montreal in 1989, 1994 and 2008. The company won 2nd prize at the Pyromagic fireworks festival held in Poland in 2015 and performed the displays for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in 2018. More recently they organized a large fireworks festival in June of this year, held in Pohang.

Yoon designed both the soundtrack and the display itself, the latter using the non-visual version of PyroDigital’s ShowDirector, beginning the design process at the start of the year. She said that it’s not the size of the display that makes Montreal difficult for competitors, it’s the duration of the display (minimum 30 minutes) that sets it apart from others.

14 slices of 30 shots

The theme of the display is “Dreaming in Montreal” and Yoon noted that dreams are usually not remembered so she wanted to ensure that that would not be the case with her display! Prior to joining Hanwha as a designer 11 years ago, she had majored in Industrial Design at University and is also interested in animation. She said that she doesn’t need to use visualization software to design her displays!

Since Hanwha last competed in 2008, they have focused on improving their technological capabilities. Wednesday’s display will be very interesting as a remote controlled plane will form an integral part of the display – its exact purpose and effects will be revealed on the night. Also interesting will be the the use of the tallest crane ever seen on ramp 2 in Montreal – an impressive 72m (236 feet – a tad taller than The Grande Roue at La Ronde). Atop the crane will be 14 circular slices each containing 30 shots – an effect Yoon said they are well known for in their home country.

On the technical side, there will be 21 positions on ramp 3, 9 pontoons (each with small towers to allow some interesting horizontal effects) forming ramp 5. Ramp 3 will also feature 21 4m high posts which will allow various interesting shapes to be created. A total of 350 PyroDigital FM-16 modules will be used in the display which will contain around 3500 one-shots. The crane will also be used to create a large Niagara Falls effect.

Hanwha doesn’t manufacture display fireworks so Yoon and Park chose suppliers from Italy (Parente), China (Sunny International) and Japan (Marutamaya and Tamaya). Aficionados of large calibre products will be pleased to note that there are ten 300mm shells in the display. Yoon had intended to use nautical shells but wasn’t happy how they tested so changed these to nautical cakes instead. She said she was particularly looking forward to the finale!
The weather forecast is ideal, too, with warm temperatures and light breezes predicted.

Duyeon Yoon (l) Yuoyong Park (r)

Hands Fireworks, Canada’s oldest pyrotechnics company (founded in 1873 by William Hands) last competed in Montreal at the inaugural competition in 1985. Returning for the 35th anniversary edition of the competition, they are performing the out-of-competition opening show, with a themed entitled ‘1985 Nostalgia’ – appropriate for their long awaited return.

Guillaume Chartier and Jason Robillard

I met with Guillaume Chartier (show designer) and Jason Robillard (Production Manager) to talk about this special opening show.

Hands used to be a fireworks manufacturer in Canada, but now have a relationship with the Chinese company Lidu. 90% of the products used in the display are essentially Hands (from Lidu or their old Canadian manufactured stock) and all of these are homologated for use in Canada. The other 10% are from Vincente Caballer (Spain, but their factory is closed) together with Jingsheng (China), Mystical (China) and some NextFX (USA).

Guillaume and Jason explained that, since this is the out-of-competition opening show, there would not be any special structures or the use of ramp 5, but there would still be surprises in the show. Guillaume has a unique design style, favouring mines over one shots – this display will feature almost 800 of these in calibres from 46mm up to 100mm. There will also be a large number of nautical shells and cakes.

For the soundtrack, Guillaume told me he went through all of the music charts of 1985 to pick the songs used and was happy to find that that year was a very rich one musically. Jason couldn’t remember it in person as he hadn’t even been conceived at the time, but Guillaume had some memories of it. He told me he used Finale 3D to design the show and had an audio-engineer friend complete the mixing of the soundtrack. Hands had competed in the Philippines International Pyromusical Competition in 2017 and 2018, placing joint 3rd and Jason said this Montreal display was their largest show of 2019 and the largest since their PIPC entries. They noted the scale of the show would be larger than the usual opening show and would be more on-par with an actual competition show, featuring 4500 products fired by 2500 cues using 200 PyroDigital modules.

For aficionados of technical information the show will feature

• 949 75mm shells
• 1328 100mm
• 539 125mm
• 354 150mm
• 20 175mm
• 29 200mm
• 10 250mm

as well as around 277 cakes and slices and around 800 mines and 570 one shots and candles.

I met with Michael Lutz of Rozzi’s Famous fireworks and Maria Grazia Gerbaudo of Panzera whose companies are collaborating to put on the closing show of the 34th edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition.

This year’s closing theme, “For Your Eyes Only” (as well as the opening display’s Tribute to ABBA) had been chosen by La Ronde’s Marketing department, though the soundtrack itself was put together by Michael. The show design itself, though, was executed by a combination of Michael and his Uncle Joe Rozzi (ten year’s Michael’s senior). Both are great James Bond fans and embedded the display with one-liners from all of the Bond actors represented in the soundtrack.

One shots ready for ramp 3

The display will feature products from Panzera (Italy), Vincente Caballer (Spain), Igual (Spain), Vulcan (Hong Kong), ICON (Foti’s Chinese brand), San Tai (Taiwan) as well as some of Rozzi’s own American products. There will be approximately 6000 cues, Michael noting there will be more one-shots and slice cakes than in the display he designed for Giuliani last week. In terms of site usage, all ramps will be featured, including five pontoons (two large and three small) forming ramp 5 as well as ramp 4. Afficiandos of large shells can expect to see twelve 250mm shells and thirty four 200mm.

Maria Grazia noted that Rozzi’s Famous Fireworks are Panzera’s largest US partner and were involved in homologating the company’s products for the United States market. Traditionally Panzera were famous for their Roman Candles, but Maria Grazia noted that their one-shots are renowned, now, for colour, consistent height and interesting effects.

Michael Lutz and Maria Grazia Gerbaudo

Michael noted at the end of the interview that James Bond is an iconic character that will bring many back to their adolescence. He also noted that more than half of the soundtrack is represented by female artists – this being entirely appropriate for James Bond’s character! Hopefully the weather will cooperate on Wednesday for both the awards ceremony and this closing celebration!

I met with Marco Giuliani, fifth generation patron of the company of his name, Michael Lutz of Rozzi’s Famous Fireworks who is assisting the team with their design, and an interpreter.

For complex reasons, Howard and Sons, who were scheduled to complete this Wednesday 1st August, were unable to ship their products in time to reach Montreal for their display. Giuliani were called in at the last minute, around 20th June, to fill the gap, Marco explaining that he was proud his company had been selected, even though it was a very difficult logistical challenge for them at that particular time of year. To help with the logistics (both in terms of products and design), Rozzi’s Famous Fireworks (who are already designing the closing show) agreed to help. Despite it being their busiest time of year, Michael Lutz worked with Marco, largely through video chats on What’sApp, to help design their display as well as secure the required products. Michael said they were already users of Giuliani products, particularly their studatas, and so he has include these in the display to give an authentic Giuliani feel to it.

For the soundtrack, Marco and Michael worked together to come up with something that represents the company but is outside of the usual patriotic stereotype that’s easy to fall into for an Italian display. Thus there are contemporary Italian artists, including winners of the San Remo Italian song festival from the past three years, as well as a Montreal-born Italian artist who sings in French, Italian and English. Michael and Marco exchanged ideas back and forth and so Michael said he hope the design captured the feel that Marco would have given to the display. Michael used the visualization feature of Finale Fireworks in the design back-and-forth with Marco. Giuliani is more of a manufacturer of products, though they do put on 70-100 displays per year and are involved in various Italian festivals and some international events.

Marco Giuliani and Michael Lutz

In terms of products, together with the Giuliani products that Rozzi had in stock (unfortunately their renowned 400mm shells are not permitted in Montreal), Michael selected material from Panzera (Italy), ICON (Foti’s brand made in China), Vulcan (China), San Tai (Taiwan)and some Rozzi products as well. The display will use all five ramps, including the floating pontoons forming ramp 5 (with 5 platforms) as well as 11 positions on ramp 3 and 5 on both ramps 2 and 1 and some smaller installations on ramp 4. Even though the pontoons are in use, there will also be nautical products used (from the Spanish manufacturers Igual and Vincente Caballer). The display is being fired with FireOne and is around 6500 cues (a number that seems “ordinary” this year but, in the not too distant past, would elicit amazement). In terms of large calibre shells, there will be ten 250mm and around twenty four 200mm.

Michael said he is looking forward to the Figaro segment as well as Lindsey Stirling and Marco said he’s looking forward to the penultimate song as this demonstrates the love of Italy. Michael also said the finale will be different to what he would normally do and definitely has a Giuliani feel to it. Both expressed their opinion that the audience should attend the display at La Ronde this coming Wednesday so they may “see something not seen before as well as music they’re not used to hearing that represents the melody of Italy”.

I met with Rocco Vitale, the chief designer of Pirotecnico’s second participation in the Montreal International Fireworks Competition.

Since winning the Gold Jupiter in 2008, with a memorable display (which also caused my camera to crash with a buffer overflow during the finale) entitled Rock Loves, the team is back with “Rock Loves redux”. Rocco said that their win in 2008 definitely increased the company’s brand recognition externally and also gave a big boost internally. Rocco said they were very grateful for winning and their company now puts on around 2,500 shows a year across the United States. Following their win in 2008, for five years they organized an event called PyroFest, which featured world-class displays of the same calibre they had shown in Montreal.

Now that ten years have passed, they felt it was a good time to come back to Montreal and this anniversary was always front and centre in their design process, which Rocco said had evolved considerably in that period. He joked and wondered how they got their 2008 show off the ground!

The design process began with a one week session in Dallas, where Rocco now lives, with co-designers Matt Wood , Jason Farrell  and Phillip Stewart, with input from Rocco’s brother Stephen. Several other co-design sessions took place to finalize the concept. Asked about the theme, Rocco mentioned that all the designers are rock-n-roll guys and he recalled his early days as a teenager in the packing department listening to rock radio out of Ohio. They had all agreed there had to be at least one Rush song in the soundtrack! Each song will also feature a unique colour palette and design style.

This will be the most complex display Rocco has ever designed. Fired from 24 PyroDigital field controllers and a total of 695 16-cue modules (500 on ramp 3 alone), the cue and product count is enormous (and will be revealed in the display report). In terms of products, Rocco said he has an almost brother-like relationship with Ricardo Caballer (and two Pyrotecnico crew had helped Ricardo with his Gold Jupiter-winning display in 2016) such that Ricardo offered to specially build the entire show. Taking advantage of this allowed Rocco to specify particular effects he wanted and have Ricardo fabricate them. So almost all the one-shots and candles are from Ricasa, together with shells and 100mm mines from Yung Feng as well as products from Sunny and Vulcan of China as well as some Parente material from Italy.

Designers - Jason Ferrel (l), Todd Marcocci (soundtrack), Matt Wood and Phil Stewart(r)

Arches on ramp 4

Gregg Smith - director of safety for the American Pyrotechnics Association and former 26 year veteran at Pyrotecnico

Rocco said that he had used the ShowDirector design and visualization software mainly for the low-level effects and they are trying ideas they’ve never used before. There will be many structures (four arches, 13 small towers, 3 large towers and four mini domes) and a total of 13 pontoons forming ramp 5. The soundtrack was edited together by a professional that Rocco had used for work in Philadelphia . Rocco also said there will be lots of surprises in the show – you have to be there at La Ronde on Saturday night to see them. In the words of Emerson, Lake and Palmer:

You gotta see the show
It is dynamo!
You gotta see the show
It is rock n’roll

I met with Jovenson Ong, owner of Dragon Fireworks and one of the designers of the display. Vander Tenedero and Don Miguel were also involved in the design process but they were busy working on this very large setup.

Joven described the founding of Dragon Fireworks in 1992, after fireworks were officially legalized in the Philippines after a ban of more than 20 years had ended. Joven spotted the opportunity and became the first to apply for a permit to manufacture consumer firworks. Eventually professional fireworks added as the revenue from the sale of the consumer fireworks supported expanding the business. Dragon (which is the Chinese symbol of success) manufacture everything from sparklers, through large consumer cakes (where 75mm shells are allowed) all the way up to 150mm shells – which is the largest calibre that’s allowed in many of the firing sites they serve. Joven explained the features of their products such as special brilliant colours, extra-powerful burst charges and high standards of manufacture and was disappointed to note that shipping problems prevented any of their material leaving the Philippines. Faced with the prospect of having to cancel their participation, which was a dream come true, they embarked upon a “plan B” which was to source many of their fireworks from Europe, their large calibre shells already were scheduled to come from ACE Pyro in Michigan.

Dragon had first made overtures to compete in Montreal after meeting the organizers at the International Symposium on Fireworks held in Bordeaux in 2015. This proved fortuitous as they contracted Panzera to manufacture around 4,500 items for them in Montreal. Many of the rest were scheduled to be sourced from the Italian company Guiliani, but they also faced shipping problems, forcing Dragon to seek other sources.

Finally, then, they have products coming from Panzera (Italy), San Tai (Taiwan) and Yung Feng (China) sourced via ACE, NextFX and other products sourced from GFA in Canada as well as products from Vulcan and PyroGenie sourced through Archangel in Manitoba and a German company.

Joven said the idea for the theme, Of Games and Thrones (which is a wordplay on Game of Thrones), came to him in his smallest office. The choice of music was finalized by January with Vander being responsible for the final mixing of the soundtrack. Several of the team worked on the show design with Vander and Don Miguel working in parallel with others.

On the technical side, the display will feature 9 positions on the floating pontoons of ramp 5; 9 positions on ramp 4; 15 positions on ramp 3 and seven on ramp 2 which will also feature some scaffold structures. Also there will  be 6 positions in total on the three access ramps to ramp 3. There will be around 3500 shells, 4500 one-shots, 400 Roman Candles as well as many cakes and slice cakes. For large shell lovers there will be 45 200mm shells and 33 250mm. The display of approximately 9500 cues will be fired using FireOne.

Some of the Dragon Fireworks Team - Joven 3rd from the right and Vander 4th from the left

Vander, at just 25 years of age, became interested in fireworks after being inspire by this website – montreal-fireworks.com! He became friends with a forum participant, Patrick, who designed the poster for their display and is working on their crew. Patrick and Vander played “Roller-coaster Tycoon” online together – this video game featured an engine which allowed the creation of fireworks displays and they worked together to test it to its limits. So Vander was particularly pleased to be competing in Montreal, 15 years after the creation of the forum on montreal-fireworks.com

All of the team said it was a dream come true to be competing in Montreal and were particularly proud to be the first company from South-east Asia. Vander and Joven stressed he wanted there to be some fun aspects and was looking forward to the Super Mario segment. When asked for a one-liner to attract the public to attend the display at La Ronde, they answered that “This is the greatest show!” – a line from the film The Greatest Showman.

I met with Alain Carbonneau, president of Apogée and representing Canada for the first time in the Montreal International Fireworks Competition. Apogée were invited to perform the opening show in 2016, which they did to acclaim from the public.

Alain Carbonneau

Alain has a long history in the fireworks business in Canada, originally working for FiatLux in Montreal and event promoter Frank Furtado, who ran the Vancouver and Toronto fireworks competitions as well as Montreal (when it started in 1985). Eventually Alain formed his own company with the help of his Spanish mentor, Pedro Garcia (who sadly was killed in a car crash in 1998). Struggling for a name for the company, eventually inspiration came after seeing “Apogee” included on a box of electronic equipment, Alain explained the name is particularly apt for fireworks as the zenith of the trajectory of a star or a shell is its apogee. Alain was particularly interested in European fireworks due to his mentor, and made many contacts in the industry in Spain and Italy, having a relationship with Parente Fireworks as well as Antonio Caballer. Alain found himself designing dozens of shows a year with Parente and used the contacts there when he was running the Casino de Lac Leamy international fireworks competition in Gatineau. Parente helped with the setup, including their wireless FireMaster firing system. Eventually Alain competed in competitions in Europe, where he won the first and jury prizes at the Pyronale in Berlin in 2008 as well as the first prize in 2010 at Fiocchi di Luce in Asiago, Italy.

For his debut competition display in Montreal, Alain spent around two months selecting and refining the soundtrack. Coming up with an appropriate name was also a challenge but, eventually, the title “The Immortals” came to mind and the theme is a tribute to many great musicians who have died in the past few years.

Alain’s design style is probably unique in the industry. Rather than using any kind of software, he uses a narrative approach to the design and uses words to describe the storyboard of the display. These words are then matched to products that he has an intimate knowledge of to build the final display.

Speaking of products, Alain said his aim was to respect the budget but still give a European flavour to his display. To that end, he is using Chinese products from Canadian Pyro (based in Manitoba) and Big Top Fireworks as well as Chinese cakes from Mystical Distributing (based in British Columbia). European products come from Parente (Italy) and Grupo Luso (Portugal). In terms of large calibre products, there will be fifty 200mm shells fired.

The display will be fired with the FireMaster wireless system using modules from series III, IV and V with a cue-count of around 1200. There will be some special structures on ramps 2 and 4 as well as some special effects designs on ramp 3. Due to the use of nauticals, the floating pontoons forming ramp 5 will not be used. Some of the special effects (that will be used in the Under Pressure track) have never been seen before in Montreal. Alain explained the aim of the display is to create many difference ambiences and feelings and, to encourage the audience to attend at La Ronde on Wednesday, noted “it’s a must see!”. The weather forecast is perfect, too!