Mr Marriott,

I'm curious. If you care to, please share with us how you got interested in fireworks. Did you have a family history of interest in your youth? Or, was not until you went to LaRonde for the Benson & Hedges competions?

Iowa Tom

He brings up an interesting question, Paul! I wouldn't mind knowing some background, myself.

Although I'm 100% sure that you became a fireworks enthusiast since you were young, like me!

Regards,

Trav.

Tom, Trav,

I'm happy to share with you and everyone here how I became interested in fireworks.

As some of you may know, I'm originally from England and there the tradition is to have fireworks on November 5th - Guy Fawkes' night. Some of my earliest memories are having a bonfire and fireworks with the neighbours at the bottom of our garden. I guess this ignited my passion early since I got to smell the smoke so young but I have always been interested since then.

I moved to Montreal in 1993 and already had heard about the, as it was then called, Benson and Hedges Internation Fireworks competition. At that time, I was surprised to see no-one (much) was reporting it so I took it upon myself to post some articles on usenet - if you want to see my original post go to:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=montreal+fireworks+paul+marriott+gro up:rec.pyrotechnics&start=70&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=rec.pyrotechnics &scoring=d&selm=1vlaan%24ed4%40Lightning.McRCIM.McGill.EDU&rnum=75

At that time, the New Hampshire Pyrotechnics Association (of which I am now a member) started to pick up my reports and have been carrying them ever since. Also in 1993, the invitation-only Pyrotechnics Mailing List was founded and my reports have been posted there since then. In 1996 I decided to start a website (as many people were doing in those days) and thought it would be good to put my reports from 1993-1995 up on the site. Thus the prototype of this site was born.

Some more information and history of this site can be found in the paper I wrote for the 7th International Symposium on Fireworks held in Valencia last October. A copy of the paper is available on this site here:

http://www.montreal-fireworks.com/symposium.html

I'm proud to say that I've seen 101 displays at the Montreal competition and am looking forward to this year's exciting schedule.

Cheers,

Paul.

Paul,

I'm impressed of your history background in relation to fireworks! I find it very interesting.

My story is different. As I've said quite frequently on this forum, I've been attending the competition since 1990. At the time, my family and other relatives wanted to take me to La Ronde for the first time, so it was my treat. Later that afternoon, my uncle, who made the discovery, told us about some fireworks display that's supposedly happening that night, so we decided to check it out that evening.

When it was time to countdown, we waited anxiously until the fireworks were ready to shoot off. When it did, my whole family was heavily amazed and quite impressed. I have to be honest, but I was terrified! It's a little embarrassing to say, but I was scared of the fireworks, particularly the noise it made and the fact that I thought the fireworks were coming too close to me! I was only 5! I guess my young age was asscoicated with the situation. Anyways, my family later discovered that the display we saw, had something to do with some sort of competition, which was sponsored by Benson & Hedges, at the time. After seing an incredible display, we decided to look for a place to watch the remaining dispays. After seing so many that year, we started developing a fascination and I started getting over my fear of fireworks because I quickly learned that it can't harm me from such a distance! To tell you the truth, my family and I were pretty much fascinated by the finales of the displays and still are today. This fueled our desire to come watch some more displays. As the years went by, so did our passions for fireworks, especially mine! We then started learning more about how the competition worked and how it was designed and thus we became heavily interested in everything that goes on during each entire show.

To make a long story short, the following years we found a descent spot to watch the displays, which is on Notre-Dame. This has been our spot since 1991 onwards (I now stand on Lorimier and Notre Dame intersection). I know you had mentioned that you used to watch where I did, but you later shifted to La Ronde in 1996, if I'm correct. I've pretty much been there since the beginning, although I saw my very first display at La Ronde in 1990.

Now I'm pleased to say that I've become a big fireworks enthusiast that which you see before you today! I'm also happy to say that I've seen roughly 125 displays since I've been attending the competition!!!!!!!! Like you and everyone else, I'm also very excited to see what this year has to offer. I've been waiting for this since last August! Ever since you posted the new schedule for this year, I couldn't pull myself together! It was a real surprise, indeed.

Well, that's my story. What do you think? Hope you liked it.

Paul, despite my story, I wanted to know something about your note-taking technique. How do you do it? I mean I know you told me recently that you write page after page of notes. My question specificly is how do you remember what types of fireworks go up? I mean the fireworks are relatively going at a steady pace and often appear in a variety mixed together at times, so I'm thinking that you're constantly looking up and down all the time. I do know that in some finales, like Pirotechnia Igual for Spain in 2001, for example, that you wrote "Out of control." Also, generally, you write "WOW" when finales are intense and the fact that you can't keep up. I know you can't write in extreme detail for this segment, but I mean for the rest of the show. How do you do this? It always puzzles me every year when I think about you taking notes while I'm watching a display! I always wonder how you're managing!

Regards,

Trav.