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.