I met with Yanick Roy, president of Royal Pyrotechnie, thrice winner of the Gold Jupiter in 2003, 2009 and 2014 (jointly with Fireworks Spectaculars), winner of the soundtrack Jupiter in 2009, and the designer of this out-of-competition opening show for the 37th edition of the Montréal International Fireworks Competition.
Yanick is the most awarded designer in Canada and his last appearance in Montréal was for the opening show in 2018. A lot has happened since then, including the pandemic, war in Europe and the attendant inflation crisis as well as numerous supply chain issues that also affected the price and availability of products from China especially. Royal had acquired Quebec-based FAE in 2018 and had one of their best years ever in 2019. 2020 was a different story. Suddenly there were no more shows. Yanick had the idea, together with three or four colleagues, to put their efforts towards making portable hand sanitization stations. He said that this really helped sustain the company through the worst early days of the pandemic. Then, in 2021, they had the idea of doing special covid-safe shows where they would choose several secret sites (as many as five or six) in a town or city and then these would be only “announced” a few minutes before the show by the firing of warning shots. Of course, the residents of the town knew there would be fireworks, just not where. The first place they did this was Granby, in the Eastern Townships area of Quebec. It was a great success so they replicated the idea in other locales such as Cowansville, Gatineau and other cities. One of the challenges of these shows was getting enough crew due to the multiple simultaneous sites.
Last year, 2022, proved to be one of Royal Pyrotechnie’s best years ever. They made it through the pandemic, but everything is not like it was. Shipping costs increased across the board as did product prices, no matter whether they were imported from Europe or Asia. A big challenge now is getting enough staff as the pandemic changed the outlook of what a lot of people do for a living. Now, in 2023, a new threat has appeared. Previously, there were two main reasons a show might be cancelled – an order from SOPFEU (the forest fire prevention agency) or the forecast of bad weather. Now there’s a third and much more unpredictable threat: unhealthy air quality due to the vast numbers of forest fires. The issues isn’t the fireworks adds to the smoke – the amount produced in a typical display is minuscule anyway (plus it only is present for a few tens of minutes) – the problem is that the public health agencies can shut down outside events due to the unhealthy air quality. Due to the nature of such large events as the fireworks competition, it’s impossible to reschedule them as the police and all the other public agencies involved are scheduled months in advance. Yanick told me that around the St-Jean Baptiste holiday of June 24th he had displays cancelled or postponed for all three reasons. One that was rescheduled due to rain was cancelled the next day due to bad air quality. At the time of writing this report, this threat is looming for this opening display. Montreal had terrible air quality on Sunday but is currently good again – but the wind directions are fickle and it can change in a short time. A final decision will be made 24 hours in advance. Let’s hope the forecast remains favourable. Other issues that are starting to surface are due to the media overplaying the impact fireworks have on the environment. Almost all large festivals across the world incorporate fireworks, but the impact of the attendees themselves massively dwarves any impact the fireworks themselves have. Unfortunately, this fact is often missing in the discussion. At the recent International Symposium on Fireworks, held in Malta this past April, there was much discussion on having UNESCO declare fireworks and “intangible cultural heritage” and so rightly protect them like any other piece of heritage.
So the display! Like Yanick’s previous opening display in 2018, the theme was selected by the organizers as well as a list of pieces of music to choose from. As the theme is “A Tribute to Boy and Girl Bands”, multiple pieces for many different groups were on the list. Yanick said it was a fun challenge to come up with the final montage that would be captivating for the audience without a repetitive feel. He enlisted the help of producer Carl Müren of Productions Point A to help with the mixing as well as adding some extra oomph from him playing percussion! The final soundtrack has twenty three segments! In terms of pyrotechnic design, the display will not be using the floating pontoons of ramp 5 as Yanick felt they didn’t add enough for this kind of out-of-competition display for the setup time that would be involved. The script was carefully designed to optimize the number of firing modules required as this is Royal’s busiest season and they did many displays last weekend with many more for the upcoming Canada Day celebrations this coming weekend. The cue count is a little bit over 2500 – so there’s actually more than the display in 2018. Yanick said they have lots of exciting new one-shot and slice-cake products this time as well as some new shell types. Fans of large shells will not be disappointed as there are many in the 200 and 250mm calibre being used! Let’s hope the weather cooperates and we have a warm and healthy evening for the inaugural display of the 2023 competition!