Please post your reviews/commentaries of the Chinese display here.

Trav.

A facebook message from Vulcan:

Our Montreal show tonight had a major firing system glitch which resulted in only 20% of the show firing. We feel bad for all the hard work that the crew spent building this show for 5 days, and not be able to see the result of their work. We want to thank Martyne, Paul, Caroline, Audree and the whole Montreal pyro crew for their help this week. It was an amazing experience and we only wish the show worked as designed, but that's life!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vulcan-Fireworks/169861116383402?hc_loc ation=stream

Paul.

It is a real pity that a glitch of this nature occurred, and I feel really bad for the team. At first, I thought technical problems would only take place during the opening of the display, but then they began to emerge again and again thereafter, unfortunately.

Nevertheless, rest assured that whatever was fired VERY often captivated the audience, especially with respect to those effects that occurred at mid-level. As a result, I can only imagine what the display could have been like if executed in its entirety!

Thank you, team Vulcan, for all of your hard work and dedication in preparing this display for all of us. I sincerely look forward to seeing your participation in the future.

Trav.

That was an amazing night, with a lot of anticipation, a great disappointment, and sincere admiration. Cindy Vermeulen, co-designer of Vulcan Fireworks debut display, is a woman who face up to the hard things.

I was inside the Salon des artificiers after the show, as I am on a regular basis since several years. I don't remember having seen a designer doing a statement to the La Ronde's crew and all guests who are there. Tonight, once the Vulcan crew has been welcomed to the Salon des artificiers with usual applauses, Ms. Vermeulen took the microphone and did a statement. She expressed how sorry she was about the situation, referring to the "Pyros" drama series to the laught of the crowd, acknowledged the hard work done by La Ronde's crew, and apologized for the performance. As soon as she completed her speech, she received the warmest applauses I have heard there. Then, she spent a lot of time to answer all the questions of the blog reporters who were there. I will leave the opportunity to supply more information on this to Paul, Mylène and Simon, but I want to congratulate Ms. Vermeulen for her attitude, humble and responsible.

While I didn't know Vulcan Fireworks, I felt a growing anticipation over the last few days as cues were dissiminated by the company on Facebook. The setup looked innovative and I found some devices promising. Once I arrived at La Ronde tonight, I saw an horizontal structure hanging to a crane, a lot of stuff on the fifth ramp, and additional floating platforms between ramps 2 and 3. Some rotative devices were also installed on several firing ramps. Clearly, that was not a "keep it simple" show, but rather a complex setup.

The show began with a (premonitory?) narrative of a technician ordering test of each firing ramp, to make sure that everything was ready for a great display. That narrative was part of the soundtrack, but the drama was augmented by actual firing problems who were obvious as the light, low-level pyrotechnic effects, didn't fit with the powerful music. Very quickly, it was obvious that most launching positions on ramps 1 and 2 (the main ramps) didn't come into life, leaving the audience with low-level effects and larger shells fired from a very restrictive number of positions. At the beginning, I was sure that the show was going to be interrupted for a couple of minutes, as it has happened in similar situations, that the problem was going to be fixed sooner or later, and that we would enjoyed a full display. But the show was not interrupted, leaving the audience with only 20% of the pyrotechnic products setup for that performance (see post above).

What we saw and heard was excellent, increasing my feeling of disappointment as this team appeared to potentially be a Jupiter winner. Rotative devices - shooting comets in fast sequences - produced great patterns at several times during the display. The design also highlighted the depth of the firing area with cakes which simultaneously erupted from several firing positions on the platforms between ramps 2 and 3, other cakes on ramps 3 and 5. The finale was absolutely loud and I can't imagine how powerful the full finale would have been. Many of the rare shells bursting at high level featured multple effects, and were very large. For sure, that show has been designed to optimize the opportunities provided by La Ronde firing area. The musics was very entertaining.

I would have appreciated, from the competition organizer, a kind word to the audience. In such circumstances, it would have been appropriate to acknowledge - through Michel Lacroix who always does a closing announcement once the show is over - that unfortunate problems have occurred, that everyone from La Ronde is sorry about this, and to thanks the audience.

I really hope that Vulcan Fireworks will be invited once again to the Montreal International Fireworks Competition. And why not with the same display, so we could fully enjoy it? But I would definitely removed that premonitory narrative!

Fred

This was certainly a tragedy, given all the hard work that Vulcan put into this show. Judging from the exceptional quality of the effects that we DID see, I can only begin to imagine what we missed!

I struggled with the decision to post the video of the entire show - or perhaps not even post a video at all. In the end, I elected to edit it down to four songs which encapsulated many wonderrful firing sequences. And even then, I realize that there were many more components missing, but I felt it worthwhile to share a few of the best moments with those who can't be in Montreal.

Here is the link for the abbreviated Hong Kong show: http://www.burchcom.com/2013/hongkong.html

And to the team at Vulcan, I sincerely hope I have the opportunity to see one of your shows in the future.

I agree with Fred and burchcom. The parts of the display that we enjoyed were fabulous! I hope that we are given the opportunity to see the missing 80% when they return to Montreal again! It was designed as a winning display that I would love to see!

Hope everything went well following the display.

That was very unfortunate! I was looking forward to Vulcan's show... From Burchcoms video it seem they definitely had a potential jupiter winning design. The use of 3d was quite impressive in some of the parts where it worked. The colors of their products were also very bright.

With 80% of the show not working, disassembling the show would probably be just as tricky as setting it up. Just like what everyone has said, I'd love vulcan to be reinvited.

Best Regards,
Vander

As a pyro, I was heartbroken last night and words couldn't express the pain I felt for the Vulcan team. Knowing how much hard work and passion they put into their show just left me without words. They created effects we hadn't seen before in Montreal and brought some new dimensions to the possibilities of the site - a remarkable achievement for any team, but even more remarkable for a debutant. As soon as the display started my heart sank as it was obvious there was a serious problem. What made it worse was knowing that probably nothing could be done to rectify the situation - it wasn't as if there was a broken cable or something not quite connected correctly - this was a 100% wireless show - if the firing modules don't receive their signal, it's really not obvious what can be done to change that situation. Time after time I said under my breath "stop the show!!" - but knew in my heart of hearts that this probably couldn't change anything.

Seeing the beauty and novelty in the design only made the feeling worse. When things were firing, we saw great beauty and precise design. The music was great and we could see the potential shining through. I kept hoping that things would just burst into life - and, occasionally, they appeared as though they would. But it was obvious that nothing on ramp 2 was firing at all, and parts of ramps 1 and 3 were missing from time to time.

No-one can be blamed for last night's events - certainly not the team nor the La Ronde crew. Nothing they did in their setup was wrong as far as we can tell. Everything had passed continuity checks at 6pm and the team were relaxed due to finishing early. A final continuity check before the show started was also OK. As to what really went wrong, maybe we will never know - but it is every pyro's nightmare. At least nothing went disastrously wrong and no-one was injured or hurt physically.

Cindy Vermeulen took the unprecedented step of addressing the attendees in the salon des artificiers as Fred already explained. She got a standing ovation for her courage and many of us fought back the tears.

I'm sure Vulcan will be invited back, as others have said, maybe they should bring this show as-is and present it as it was meant to be. Other teams should tremble at that thought, though, as the parts we saw last night indicated Gold Jupiter material.

Paul

Given these unparalleled circonstances in the Montreal International Fireworks Competition history, I suggest that Vulcan Fireworks should be invited as soon as 2014 to present this full show. It is hypothesized that up to 80% of pyrotechnic material has not been fired. Manufacturing (or buying) and moving this stuff to Montreal is very expensive. And we also have to think about the countless hours spent to design a display of this size, a show that we could not see for most of it.

In a such situation, I assume the most rationale decision may be to store the unfired stuff until next year. I have absolutely no idea how much it would cost to store this, and what regulation constraints may be. But I suppose the cost of storage + the purchase and transportation of new material to replace the 20% would totalize less than the usual amount of money for a similar show. Vulcan may present this display within the 2014 competition, or as an off-competition opening display.

Que REtombe la nuit! Que la fête REcommence!

Fred

In a such situation, I assume the most rationale decision may be to store the unfired stuff until next year. I have absolutely no idea how much it would cost to store this, and what regulation constraints may be. But I suppose the cost of storage + the purchase and transportation of new material to replace the 20% would totalize less than the usual amount of money for a similar show. Vulcan may present this display within the 2014 competition, or as an off-competition opening display.


On the surface, this seems like a very logical solution. Of course, there are other factors at play, and I imagine that it's not so easy to store explosives, but I really hope that something can be worked out to allow Vulcan to present their show as it was intended.

Is there anyone that can be contacted to voice support for this idea?

I was not in the park for this show, but I could tell that something was wrong even from Rue Notre-Dame. What did fire, as others have said, was fantastic. If what we saw was only 20% of the show, then what an awesome display it would have been!

Here is a link to my video footage of the last ~5:30 minutes of the display, viewed from De Lorimier/Notre-Dame:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22UC2HrzMsw

Those final barrages of salutes had such a distinctly fearsome echo emanating from them!

As Duncan_S pointed out, it was made quickly clear to many of us on Notre-Dame (and surrounding locations) that something went terribly wrong.

Trav.

I feel really bad for Vulcan. I wasn't able to attend the display, but from what I've seen in the footage provided by both Bob and Trav, the quality of the material used was fantastic. I'm really surprised the show wasn't stopped to reboot the system or something. Not informing the audience about the problem at the end is a major mistake by La Ronde. As a paying viewer, I would blame Vulcan for delivering a cheap product if no explanation was given. I'm sure the crowd would be understanding for this particular (and very rare) situation.

Now, as a devil's advocate, should La Ronde ban the use of wireless firing systems in the future? Given that the pyro teams can choose any system they're comfortable with, La Ronde should also warn the teams of the risks of such a system and provide technical advice to force them to use wired which can be more stable/deterministic.

All in all, I WANT Vulcan to come back!!!!

Dan

Like Dan, I am also questioning the use of wireless firing systems. It goes to show, though, that even in today's day and age, incidences of this nature can, indeed, happen.

In spite of what happened, I also found La Ronde's procedures in addressing the audience following the display to be quite unconventional for such circumstances.

Trav.

Like everyone already said, I figured something was seriously wrong a few seconds after the display started, as a single (non-rotating) red flare lit up on Ramp #5 while the storyboard indicated that three of them were supposed to be both lit up and rotating, not to mention other pyrotechnic material as well.

I was expecting the display to be interrupted a few minutes to help the crew diagnose and fix the issue, but unfortunately the display went on for the full 30 minutes. Was the construction on the other bridges an issue (the reason why we have some displays on Friday nights) that forced La Ronde's crew to finish at 10:30 PM no matter what ?

Or like Paul said, maybe there was just no hope of bringing the defective modules to a working state, who knows.

What I do know is that I've seen things I've never seen since I've started to cover the competition in 2008, like tethered fountains (mounted to a steel wire and "dancing" erratically as they burn), the dramatic lollipop cakes, the additional firing positions left and right of ramp 4, bouncing comets, etc.

This complex approach, when it was working properly, was quite stunning. If we had seen the display in its entirety, this was a serious Jupiter contender.

We've seen in the past display companies keeping a simple approach but finishing everything on time, greatly reducing their chances to win, or going all-in but failing to complete the set-up on time, also reducing their chances. Vulcan did go all-in and succeeded to complete the set-up with a few hours to spare, which is something they should be very proud of as again it would have served them well.

They were not at fault for the technical issues, as their work was done correctly when the Galaxis firing system decided to misbehave at the worse possible moment.

I therefore wish to sincerely congratulate the company for preparing one of the most ambitious displays I had the luck of attending and for Ms. Vermeulen's speech at the Salon des Artificiers after the show. I do believe she had nothing to apologize for, as it clearly wasn't the team's fault if they had these issues, but she proved us how professional and humble she was.

The reference to Pyros was also quite ironic considering Eric Cardinal was in attendance when she said that !

I do hope Cindy Vermeulen is the next Brad Dezotell by coming back stronger in a later edition after important technical issues and winning a Gold Jupiter for her deserving team.

My pictures are online on Pyro Québec. I won't write a report this week and didn't conduct a video interview with Ms. Vermeulen (speaking of which, I have two older ones to put online plus a report on last week !)

It seems everyone's blaming wireless firing for the problem. Honestly I think that it could have been human error as most firing systems only do what they are commanded to do. I'm sure this could also be the case for Galaxis. Vulcan could possibly have forgotten to recalibrate their modules to work for the specific master panel they were using. But as of now it's hard to tell what really happened judging from the videos.

Vander

Honestly I think that it could have been human error as most firing systems only do what they are commanded to do. I'm sure this could also be the case for Galaxis. Vulcan could possibly have forgotten to recalibrate their modules to work for the specific master panel they were using.

I understand what you're saying, but this seems very unlikely. The system was able to pass continuity tests twice - if the panel wasn't configured properly I would have thought that these tests would have failed. I did recently hear that 17 (of 54) modules did not fire at all but most of everything else did fire. It's not the first time Vulcan have used the Galaxis system - I believe they are returning the modules to see if Galaxis themselves can diagnose the problem. I am sure they will want to find the reason for this as soon as possible as this is the kind of event that causes a lot of fear and uncertainty amongst customers.

Paul.

that's right.. I'll definitely have my ears open on news as to what exactly happened. We'll be using galaxis in Berlin and something like that is not acceptable xD

Vander

I do hope that the problem can successfully be diagnosed, as it does appear to be a complex one. I am waiting anxiously!

Trav.

Like Trav and all the rest, I too am looking for a reason for this catastrophic failure. I am sure this event will cause a shock wave (pardon the pun) among the pyro industry since many companies use this system. To have this happen in one of the most prestigious competition must be heartbreaking for Galaxis. I'm sure they'll be quick on the draw to debug this.

Dan

I have heard that they are starting to home-in on the reason for the problems. When I have more information, I'll share it.

Paul.

Finally, here is my report with a note to the organizers that I'll reproduce here: http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=737

Many people have expressed the opinion that team Vulcan should be invited back to Montreal and I concur with these. Various ideas have been mooted, the most appealing, in my opinion, would be to have Vulcan re-perform their display as either the opening or closing to the 2014 season. Since the 2014 season is the 30th edition of the competition, this would be an excellent idea. All of the product that did not fire is already here in Montreal (and storage could be arranged I’m sure). I urge the organizers to seriously look at this possibility and hope that, whatever is decided, we see Vulcan again in Montreal. They certainly have the design skills to present an exceptional show and quality product to make it something special.

Paul.

I am not a frequent poster on this forum, I felt compelled to post on this topic though.

Yet again I have to say I am very grateful for the great coverage of this competion with intreviews, reports, and complete videos. It makes it possible for us at the other side of the pond to follow this fantastic competition.

Regarding the Vulcans show I can only say it is a tradgey and I feel sorry for the crew and designers for loosing their show to technical errors.

I would however sugest that until more is known about what happend, blame should not be assigned. Until we know what went wrong we do not know it was the firing system that was at fault. Or that it is wireless part of what happend. It is a bit early to say ban-wireless. Galaxis was used flawlessly during eurovision with almost twice the amount of modules, and probably alot more RF in the air. And it has been used with success in other montreal shows.

These extreme kind of shows puts a lot of strain on whichever system is used. It will need more technical attention than during a normal show. I am not trying to shift blame to the Vulcan crew. I just want you all to wait until more is known. Hopefully both Vulcan and Galaxis will comment on the issues after investigating it.

I am like many others a PD user, it can also have "mysterious" errors. The Silver Jupiter 2010(?) winner GFF, had some problems in their 2011 Hannover show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcKAYiQfAUk
All the cables and modules were fully functional.
Or the San Diego "show":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuJHfkXEI-o&feature=player_embed ded
Using F1.
Just saying, even though I personally prefer using a wired system it does not make it error free or fool proof(or even expert proof).

Take care everyone

Thanks to everyone for your kind and sympathetic messages. It's all very much appreciated by the Vulcan crew! We are still sorry and disappointed that we were not able to deliver the show in its entirety last Friday night.

We just wanted to let everyone know that we are looking into what happened at our show. We have used Galaxis in other shows and competitions for the past several years. All shows fired without any problems. The Technician in our crew has been using Galaxis since 2000. The equipment is on its way back to Germany and we have had some preliminary discussions with Galaxis after checking the equipment on Saturday. We will make an announcement jointly with Galaxis as soon as we can!

Tragic outcome for Vulcan, we are very sorry to see so much work end this way.

Dominator Fireworks

I spoke with some people involved with the competition yesterday and the reasons for the failure are now understood. I will wait until Vulcan/Galaxis make their joint announcement but am happy to hear that there is nothing specially difficult at the La Ronde site and that there should not be any problems of this kind in the future.

Paul.

That's good news. It's really nice to know that they've come up with a solution to this!

Trav.