I met with Michael Lutz of Rozzi’s Famous Fireworks, competing for his second time in Montreal and the 7th for the company. Michael last competed in Montreal in 2015 and, since then, designed the opening show in 2017 as well as the closing shows in 2018, 2019 and 2022. For various somewhat complicated logistical reasons, Rozzi were only brought in as a competitor around the February/March timeframe, rather than the end of last year. This presented some challenges as Michael was also competing in the Gold Vestale year in Cannes – his show being fired just last weekend. However, Michael said the Cannes design had been completed before he embarked on the Montreal project. Back in 2015, Michael said it was the largest show he had ever designed but, on paper, this year’s show is even more complex.
Michael noted that, on a complex site like in Montreal, a lot of time can be lost if attention to detail and preparation is not attended to. He noted that he carefully designs his shows such that all the same type of product are in a given rack or all of the candles in a fan are in firing order. He said this extra preparation makes for a faster setup and easier checking and verification, noting that in his show in Cannes last week there were no visible errors at all. Speaking of Cannes, Rozzi were the first American team to ever compete and had won the Prix de Jury in 2019 which afforded their participation in this year’s Gold Vestale competition.
Team USA preparing candles
For the choice of theme for the display, Michael said that story-telling themes (such as the one he had used in 2015) take a lot of time to prepare and so the decision to use the Age of Rock as a theme was expedient due to the compressed timeline. That said, Michael said he’d been listening to a lot of rock-n-roll music over the past year or so and hence his headspace was already in the correct place to design the soundtrack, noting that it is musically broader than people might imagine as it includes tracks from the likes of Queen, Prince and Tina Turner. The finale piece will, in fact, be a tribute to the late artist. He noted that there will be pieces of music that everyone recognizes due to the fact that this type of music really has staying power. All of the music used has a lot of movement but with a variety of rhythm and pace, making it easier to design a soundtrack that is not just at a fixed tempo.
Michael Lutz, Jim Widmann, Bob Halker, Barry Kulhman, Jim Witterstaetter
On the pyrotechnic side, great use will be made of the floating pontoons forming ramp 5 as well as a large presence on ramp 3 as there are a total of 3700 one-shots (all manufactured by Panzera) and a total of 6500 cues. Panzera is supplying the bulk of the products which will, of course, include their signature cylindrical shells (though this means there will be no 250mm nor 300mm shells). For most everything else, Foti’s Chinese brand, Ikon, will be used. Nautical shells and cakes will also be a feature of the display.
Michael said he’s really trying hard for a Jupiter and has put his heart into the display, despite the short timescale and noted that the soundtrack took him back to childhood with memories of listening to his father’s rock albums. He said he had recently bought a purple vinyl copy of a Prince album!
