I met with Vicente Talayero, Caballer’s production manager and Luis Fuentes Piquer, designer of Saturday’s show. Luis didn’t really speak English so I hope I do the interview justice, with the helpful interpretation of Vincente Talayero.
Vincente Caballer last performed in Montreal at the special 20th Edition in 2004. They said that they always want to come back to La Ronde, just that the logistics are very difficult as July is their busiest time of year. One of their largest markets is the US and Canada and so their production is focussed on supplying their customers in those markets, making it difficult to spend the time making products for competitions. The same is true in Europe, also.Vincente explained that they have not been doing competitions as many of the competitors are already using their products. This is true for Montreal this year – with at least three of the companies yet to compete with some Caballer products in their arsenals.
Luis explained the concept of the theme, which uses all-Spanish music, is sort of a poem without words, designed to evoke passion. It can be thought of as a journey through a Spanish radio dial – turning the tuner and coming across the many diverse genres of Spanish music. He said that the audience in Montreal are very knowledgeable about music, but wanted to avoid using pieces that would be specifically known here, but, rather, give the true flavour of Spain.
Design of the display began at the end of last year, during the time Vincente Caballer were working on the World-recording breaking display shot on New Year’s Eve at the Burj Khalifa to Burj Al Arab then the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. Luis and Vincente kept emphasising the passion of everyone in the company in working on the show – from shell builder Jorge Vargas (shown in the photo) through everyone in production. Indeed, Vincente’s arm hair stood on end as he spoke, voice starting to tremble with emotion. This is truly an important display for the company as they want it to be a showcase of their talents.
Due to the time constraints and translation requirements, Luis sent me an email when he got back to the hotel with a bit more explanation. Here it is in the original Spanish and a rough-and-ready translation.
El espectáculo nos traslada a través de representaciones de audios generados por gabinetes electroacústicos, de diversos campos radioeléctricos, magnéticos,atómicos, y otros tan sencillos como son los ritmos de timbales con agua de tribus del Oceanía, que nos trasladan a mundos separados por un mismo Dios, por un poema, con sentimientos que hablan, no las palabras,habla el corazón con la fuerza de la pasión, lo que fuimos una vez, lo que somos ahora y lo que en un futuro llegaremos a ser. “Érase una vez” (Il était une fois/ Once Upon a time).
The show takes us through representations of audio generated by electroacoustics, various radio, magnetic, atomic fields, and others such as the simple the rhythms of drums with water tribes of Oceania, which will take us to worlds separated by the same God, a poem, speaking with feelings, not words spoken by heart, with the force of passion, which went once, what we are now and in the future will become. “Once upon a time” (Il était une fois / Once Upon a Time).
On the technical side, Vincente they wanted to recapture the feel of shows at La Ronde from the 1990s – with grandiose style. Thus there are a vast amount of shells and other effects, 93% of which are Vincente Caballer products, the rest being Chinese for specific purposes. This is very complex show, being fired with 480 16-cue PyroDigital field modules, eight field controllers, five boosters and a total of 9118 pyrotechnic devices with a script of 6884 cues. It should be noted that traditional Spanish time delays are also being used, hence the discrepancy between the device count and the cue count. Luis kindly provided me the detailed breakdown of what’s being fired:
- 176 3″ shells
- 1240 4″ shells
- 600 5″ shells
- 771 6″ shells
- 4 7″ shells
- 73 8″ shells
- 25 10″ shells
- 10 12″ shells
- 264 30mm oneshots
- 1992 40mm oneshots
- 3047 50mm oneshots
- 123 8-shot 40mm candles
- 147 8-shot 50mm candles
- 235 9-shot 20mm candles
There will also be set pieces, a large waterfall, nautical shells and many special new colours such as fuchsia strobes. Lots of repetition shells and studatas as well as Caballer’s renowned single and double-ascension girandolas.
Pyrotechnicians from Atlas Pyrovision Productions (who won the Gold Jupiter in 2012) are also assisting, as they are large customers and have also worked with Vincente Caballer at Pamplona in Spain.