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 38th edition of the Montréal International Fireworks Competition.
I had also met with Yanick last year for the opening show, but this was essentially postponed due to the ongoing issues with smoke from forest fires at that time, leading to very poor air quality in Montreal and much of eastern North America. In an unprecedented move, the opening show was not fired and a decision was taken to dismantle it and put it in storage so that it could be used for the opening show in 2024.
Yanick said this was a very big disappointment, both for him personally as well as the rest of the crew, but he knew, despite it being a hard decision, it was the right one. With all of the issues from the forest fires and a hostile media, it would not have been a good look to have fired the show. Between then and now, a study was commissioned to actually evaluate the environment impact of fireworks displays and the good news is that it is much less than people imagine. Indeed, most of the impact of such spectacles is due to the audience travelling to the site and thence home again. However, there are improvements that can be made and these have been incorporated into large festivals, such as the one at La Ronde as well as others in Quebec and Canada. These include measures to limit the production of fine particles, reducing the use of perchlorate-base products by 25-40% (as these produce more of the problematic PM2.5 fine particulates than other compositions) as well as better show design to prevent the build up of larges peaks of smoke.
Once the decision was taken to put the show in storage, Yanick’s crew had to devise safe-working procedures in order to de-mount all of the pyrotechnics products and safely remove the electric firing matches. All of the products were put into climate-controlled storage and checks were made in early June to ensure everything was dry and safe to re-use for this opening show.
Due to the assembly work that had been performed last year, only three days is required for setup this time, compared to the five usually needed. Yanick did say he had to check certain details in the script to re-familiarize himself with it as it’s not quite the same was working with a freshly designed show in your head.
In last year’s interview Yanick told me that Royal’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! He added that having a selection of artists is more interesting for the audience as sometimes thematic shows that focus on only one artist can be less enjoyable for the parts of the audience that don’t necessarily like the particular artist selected. For this show, he believes there will be something for everyone. When asked about his stress level, he replied that he’s not stressed at all as he has a very good crew working for him, together with the “house” team at La Ronde under the direction of Paul Csukassy.
On the pyrotechnic side, the display will feature products from companies in China, Spain, Italy as well as the United States. Even though not in competition, non-homologated products are allowed under the rules which govern international competitions so we should expect plenty of variety as well as some special products too. Total cue count is 2592 and the display will be fired from 100 FireOne 32-cue modules.
The weather forecast is reasonable and with all the recent rains there seems very little chance of smoke from forest fires spoiling the start of the 38th edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition.