Montréal International Fireworks Competition Reports

I met with Niki Langer, designer and co-owner of steyrFire with his father René, competing for their second time in Montreal. Garnering a Silver Jupiter in 2018, Niki said they were going to go all out to try and win the Gold this time. They did put on an excellent display in 2018, but were up against the Dragon Fireworks team from The Philippines who were pretty much unbeatable no matter who competed against them. Niki did acknowledge some of the elements of their 2018 show which he sought to improve on this time – one aspect being better balance between shells and low-level effects.

Before getting any further into the interview, it has to be noted the team arrived a full day late in Montreal, due to plane connection issues in Germany. For most teams, this would be devastating as it is hard to recover from losing 20% of the setup time. However, steyrFire have an ace up their sleeves in the form of the PyroDigit one-shot mounting system. They used this in 2018 and I noted at the time that they told me a crew of four could setup a show with 2,000 one-shots in half a day. Just as well they have a crew of eight as they have over 4000 one-shots to assemble and told me that they had finished this task today. One downside of the system is that the racks themselves have to be shipped – this takes up space in the container and meant they were not able to do as much advance preparation on the shells and one-shots as they would have liked, but were hard at work making up the time on-site.

The PyroDigit system is supposed to be completely waterproof – let’s hope that the remnants of Hurricane Beryl, which will pass through Montreal tomorrow and part of display-day – doesn’t disprove this. The one-shots themselves quickly plug into the system and come from European manufactures such as Europla (Spain), San Pio (Italy) and others. As well as one-shots there will be Roman Candles, fountains, wheels and other low-level effects, but no structures nor suspended 360 fans, unlike in 2018. The cost to rent platforms that are high enough is prohibitive and, as was noted in the 2018 review, doesn’t actually add much to the ramp 3 experience from an audience perspective anyway.

steyrFire have their own line of Chinese products, under the name Helios, which they import into Austria for wholesale customers as well as their own display usage. Shells in the Montreal display will come from this line, as well as Italian manufacturers such as San Pio and Pirico. Unlike last week’s Italian display, there will be fewer large shells, though there will be six 300mm shells from San Pio together with some 175mm shells, but the bulk of the display will be in the 75, 100, 125 and 150mm calibre. steyrFire also has a factory in Turkia for the manufacture of cakes and other consumer products and some of these will feature in this display. Niki noted that during the pandemic they spent time building up their factory and increasing sales to the consumer market, especially for the New Year’s Eve celebrations which are very popular.

Niki told me that 2018 had been a very busy year for competitions, culminating in Montreal. Since then, and with the pandemic intervening, he decided to take a rest from competitions, though did compete in Macao last year with a display with the same theme name as Montreal. For Montreal, he had always dreamed of returning after their 2018 Silver Jupiter and had met Paul Csukassy and Maria Grazia Gerbaudo at the International Symposium on Fireworks, held in Malta last year (I was also there). After that contact, the invitation to Montreal came, despite this interfering with Niki’s 1st wedding anniversary plans on July 8th! Niki told me he had designed the entire display after the invitation was accepted, and then decided it wasn’t good enough and so started again. Even though it has the same theme as their 2023 Macao display, it’s completely different and he noted that the site in Montreal gives a much better canvas to produce the kind of display he wanted. As per the rules this year, lasers are incorporated and he said that he had good collaboration with the local company responsible. The laser segments will be fully integrated into the display, rather than occupying entire segments.

In terms of technical design, the display will use 13 main firing positions on ramp 3, five pontoons for ramp 5 and will also use the roof of the control room, known as ramp 4. Ramp 1 will be fired using PyroDigital and ramps 2 and 3 will be with the Italian PyroDigit system (including the special firing racks) for a total cue count of over 5000. Niki designed the soundtrack and said the opening song, Made in Heaven by Queen, is the inspiration for the show but that he’s particularly looking forward to the final piece. The sound track and display should create a full emotional experience. Let’s hope the weather cooperates and Beryl is out of the way by showtime on Thursday.