Just Fun
Designed by Jaroslaw Suzdalewicz and Sebastian Cwajna. FireOne firing with ~2500 cues.
A larger audience were treated to a summer-like evening in order to witness the Polish team’s second appearance in Montreal. Wind strength was moderate but directed somewhat towards the audience, though less so than was the case with the previous week’s Italian show.
The display began with angled mines and some photoflashes and was essentially non-stop through the entire 31 minutes 20 seconds. The soundtrack was flawlessly executed with twenty nine main pieces of music seamless and artistically edited together, sometimes with a theme from another song that wasn’t even listed as a way to bridge two segments together. This approach was much more artistic and creative than the one used by Surex in 2010. There was a good range of tempo throughout the display but it might have benefited from a few quieter moments to allow the audience to catch their breath.
The pyrotechnical material used was largely of high quality, with many effects shells such as studatas, farfalles, shells of serpents and mutli-colour changing shells. However, there was some repetition of “filler” shells, especially of the colour-dark-colour type. The firing angles used for both shells and ramp 3 ensured the sky was filled and appropriate space was given to the high-quality large-calibre shells used. The thirteen towers across ramp 3 allow horizontal shots left and right to be made close to the lake. A couple of flights of single and double-ascension girandolas were also well received by the audience.
To tie the fireworks into the soundtrack, large volleys of titanium salutes were fired during the “Titanium” segment and a fantastic “eye” made of sequenced one shots rose from ramp three as the lyric said “all eyes on us” during “Scream and Shout”, to amazement from the audience, though it only occurred once.
Many nautical effects were used as was the firing of bombette candles low over the lake directly towards the audience. The finale was very powerful and brought the audience to their feet at the end to give the Surex crew a well-deserved standing ovation.
This was an excellent display and a big improvement on their 2010 debut. Great use was made of all of the space, though there was a bit of repetition of effects from time to time and not the most creative firing sequences on ramp 3, though rather better than last week’s Italian entry. Given there are only six competitors this year, Surex are already a contender for a Jupiter – though there are still four strong competitors remaining!