I interviewed Michel Rioux, CEO of Concept Fiatlux, to find out more about the special closing show for this year's 25th Edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition.

The show has been billed as a tribute to Cirque du Soleil. There may have been some confusion as to what this really means and what the format of the display will be. Michel told me that his display is an hommage to Cirque du Soleil, commissioned by La Ronde that is to pay tribute to both the 25th Edition of the competition itself as well as celebrate the first 25 years of Cirque du Soleil. This means that the display itself is not a Cirque du Soleil production, but they did specially ask for FiatLux to be commissioned to create the show as there is a close working relationship between the two companies, particularly for indoor special effects and pyrotechnics.

The original idea had been to present 25 pieces of music to represent the 25 years of the competition but it was decided this would not be effective and so the decision was made to split the display.

Thus the show will be in two parts. The first 10 minutes, entitled "Stars in their eyes" will be dedicated to the history of the competition and will feature four pieces of music representative of that used over the past 25 years. There will be a mix of pyrotechnics and narration, used to illustrate the three components that form a fireworks display: fire, sound and light. This part of the show was produced in collaboration with Sylvain Duguay of Cirque du Soleil. The concept behind this part of the display is that a young girl will be watching fireworks with her father as it is explained what they are through the invention of black powder in China up until today as the girl continues the story with her son.

The second part of the show is the real hommage to Cirque and Michel was assisted in creating the soundtrack by Alain Vinet or Cirque du Soleil. A goal of the soundtrack was to use interesting selections of Cirque music and to present music that has never been heard before in Montreal such as pieces from Cirque's Tokyo show entitled Zed and their Macao show entitled ZAIA. Alain also wanted to avoid using music from their popular Alegria show as he felt it has been overused in the other hommages that have been performed this year.

Now, for the technical aspects of the display. There will be six ramps used! Going from the audience outwards, ramp 6 is placed just 40 feet out in the lake and will consist of seventeen flame projectors than can project flames up to about 25 feet high. With them being this close to the audience, we should be able to feel the heat! Ramp 5 is formed from the seven pontoons that are normally available to competitors. Then we have a new ramp 4 that extends out into the lake in the form of an inverted U - this will be composed of 9 pontoons. After that, the usual ramp 3 platform across the lake, ramp 2 behind this on land and ramp 1, next to the river for all the large calibre shells.

In terms of material used, European manufactures include Igual and Antonio Caballer from Spain, Panzera and Martello from Italy; Asian products from the Red Eagle brand; and American products from Rozzi and Le Maitre (for close proximity effects). 92 32-cue FireOne and FireLight firing modules will be used with one main controller and several FireLight controllers. Michel said it will be the largest pyromusical he has produced to date.

Michel has had a long association with the competition as he was one of the crew during the first edition in 1985 - together with several of his associates they formed Concept FiatLux.

With a perfect weather forecast, this display should prove to be a fitting tribute to both the World's most prestigious fireworks competition as well as the World's most famous circus. We are truly blessed as Montrealers to be able to say that we're home to both.

Paul.

Thanks for the information, Paul.

Can we expect a massive faux and real finale, like what was seen during Panzera 1996 and 1997? Best way to conclude the 25th anniversary!

Trav.

Can we expect a massive faux and real finale, like what was seen during Panzera 1996 and 1997? Best way to conclude the 25th anniversary!

I guess not! That was no finale...

Trav.