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.
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.