I am just back from the closing show of the 17th edition of Les Grands Feux Loto-Québec, the Quebec City International Fireworks Competition, held at the Parc de la Chute Montmorency. The Portuguese entrant, Grupo Luso Pirotécnia, won the competition, that is, the Solstice prize awarded by the jury, as well as the public award. Mélanie Cagnon was there to pick both prizes.

To my greatest disappointment, I didn't attend Luso's display because it was scheduled on July 30th, the same night of the closing display at La Ronde. I am sure Quebec viewers had a better show that night than those who saw Panzera's tribute to the Beatles. Tonight, inside the bus, I heard a group of viewers who didn't have enough superlatives to qualify Grupo Luso Pirotecnia's display.

Usually, the winner of the Quebec City competition is automatically invited the following year. So we can expect another Grupo Luso Pirotécnia display in 2012. Hopefully, it will not be scheduled the same night than the Montreal competition, so more Luso's fans would be able to attend the show!

Other contestants this year were Pirotécnia Igual (Spain), Centre of Fireworks Khan (Russia), Lux Pirotécnia (Mexico) and Bruscella Bartolomeo (Italy). Words on the street (well, on the radio!) were that the race was close between the Spanish and Portuguese contestants.

The 35-minute closing display reviewed the 2011 line-up, with a series of 5- or 6-minute segments with parts of each national show. Though I'm not 100% sure, I believe each contestant must decide which parts of its show will be replicated and bring material accordingly. Everything is then set up and fired by a local crew, since the foreign pyrotechnicians are not there.

Pirotecnia Igual presented the soundtrack heard in Montreal in 2009 with its show entitled "Odyssee" (downsized to 25 minutes, I suppose). I had a big smile as I heard Vangelis' "Light & Shadow" that La Ronde audience enjoys during the introduction of the pyrotechnicians. I also remember with joy and excitment a particular sequence made by Igual that year, that is, some very fast sequences of mines and other effects on the very music of "Ritmo do brasil" (see part 15 of Igual's show in Montreal 2009). This Spanish part of the closing show was a great introduction.

The Russian segment was more strange and I don't remember so much about it.

The Porguese show was entitled "Juke Box". The segment presented tonight began with the sound made by the money inserted into a juke box, so I hypothesize it was the way Grupo Luso Pirotecnia's creative designers introduced their show. The soundtrack was made of popular musics and the floor of the grandstands shaked under the pressure made by people who moved their feets!

I don't remember about the Mexican segment, but I thought it looked better than what one of my colleague who attended the show reported, and it featured a better fit with the soundtrack than what I expected following Lux Pirotécnia's performance in Montreal a couple of years ago ("Chocolate", do you remember?). Maybe the designer of the closing show has some degrees of freedom to fix some problems.

The Italian part of tonight show wasn't new for me since I saw it last Saturday. The Italian finale was reproduced tonight. So it was a sort of "faux finale", because the last national segment of this closing show is followed by an ultimate one, which filled the sky with kamuros, including a barrage of nautical kamuros in front of the waterfall.

I believe it was the 5th or 6th display I attended at the Chute Montmorency, and I think it was by far the best one. For once, I saw many symetrical patterns on both sides of the waterfall, as well as a large front which reminded me La Ronde firing ramps. The concept of a review from the national displays is interesting, though it may bring some repetitive patterns. For instance, we saw two sequences made of long-duration cakes shooting whizzers. In opposition, nautical effects were not numerous and there were few fireworks launched from the pedestrian bridge above the waterfall, where more fireworks effects are usually fired, I think. I also noted that most pyrotechnic effects were rather basic (I was disappointed to not see any studatas during the Italian segment; there were many of them last Saturday), and the fireworks continued once the musics ended a couple of times.

The weather was great tonight, a bit cold and windy, but we didn't suffer too much of the smoke accumulation, which is often an issue owing to the configuration of the venue. However, the size of the crowd was not very impressive. This closing show was scheduled for Wednesday night, but has been postponed due to bad weather forecast. (Thunderstorms actually happened Wednesday night with severe showers, but later than the show, so it would have been possible to do it.)

Fred

Hi Fred,

Thank you for this interesting report! It seems to me like Grupo Luso Pirotecnia of Portugal haven't lost their touch since their excellent 2008 display here in Montreal, even though it was with a great tragedy that the team was not awarded with a Jupiter that year, not even the bronze - it still bothers me to this day when I remember that! It would have been nice if there were at least some hints out there that would point to their return to Montreal in 2012, but seeing that there is a good likelihood of them competing in Quebec City once again next year, I guess that this becomes wishful thinking.

And it is interesting that there haven't been much comments directed towards the closing display in Montreal this year. I must say that I did not really add much myself, typically because the display is an off-season one, but I will say that the finale was all that I was looking forward to, and while it was almost as powerful as I had envisioned it, I was hoping for more in the way of colors! The show itself was generally a bit too slow for my tastes, but it was entertaining in its overall delivery, nonetheless.

Had I known that you would be attending the closing display at the Quebec City competition, I would have prepared a personalized weather forecast for you in advance, Fred! Speaking of severe weather, there is a possibility of that in eastern Ontario and southern Quebec later this afternoon into the evening hours, and perhaps stretching as far as Sunday morning (the 14th).

Thanks again for your report,

Trav.