Once again, it is already time to begin posting our predictions and personal choices for the Jupiter winners of the Montreal fireworks competition.

Feel free to post here your choices. As always, it would be interesting to share the reason(s) behind your selection, but this is certainly not mandatory!

Cheers,

Trav.

The 35th edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition already comes to a close. A significant operational change this year was the introduction of the “general admission” system instead of seat assignments. It apparently took some adjustments but I think it turned to work pretty well. Since the previous system did not allow most people to select the specific seats they desired, I think the new one has more advantages than drawbacks: most people can select their seats as far as they arrive early enough, occasional viewers are not confused to locate their place, and the crowd is more scattered through the grandstands. However, one aspect which needs major improvement is the sale of tickets on-site. The kiosk located near the Arcade does not meet the demand, causing long lines and extensive waiting times. To install more kiosks throughout the park, or to allow season pass and membership card holders to buy their tickets for multiple shows in one transaction (possibly online) would help. For now, the transaction process looks painful for those who have to buy their ticket each night.

Furthermore, I am concerned with the apparent declining attendance in the park on fireworks evenings this year. This is not a new issue, rather a very long term trend. For sure, the grandstands often look crowded: the new general admission system makes the audience more scattered than it used to be with the assignment system, and tickets have never been cheaper for season pass holders. However, the attendance in the grandstands can be misleading. On multiple fireworks evenings, the back parking lot has looked almost empty, I have seen very short or no lines at all for many rides, and I have not felt the midway to be crowded at all. In addition with the remove of most seats in VIP sections 500 for corporate customers, I am concerned with the overall attendance and its potential impact on the future of the competition. More than never before, I believe it should be considered to reschedule the event, beginning in late July up to late August. My rationale is that the “festival market” is probably less competitive in the second half of the summer, and early sunset would provide an opportunity to schedule the fireworks at 9:30pm (or even 9:00pm), which may please to a larger audience.

As I wrote at the end of my Australian show review, here is my personal ranking for this season :

1. Howard & Sons (Australia)
2. Grupo Luso Pirotecnia (Portugal)
3. Atlas Pyrovision (United States)
4. Hanwha Corporation (South Korea)
5. BEM Feux d’artifice (Canada)
6. Parente Fireworks Group (Italy)

***

I find it extremely hard to make a jury prediction this year. Immediately after the Canadian display (so before the Australian one), I spoke with 7 or 8 fireworks aficionados who had attended all the show in competition this year and I asked for their ranking. I do not remember having collected so heterogeneous rankings. My stronger belief is about the Australian show. So I do predict that Howard & Sons will be the first Australian entrant to win a Gold Jupiter in the Montreal International Fireworks Competition.

We know that teams which appear later in the program are more likely to reach the podium. Since the inception of a popular jury in 1992 to 2018 :


- 3 of 27 first in-competition displays (11.1%) won a Jupiter ;
- 14 of 81 first three contestants (17.3%) won a Jupiter (never more than one within a single year) ;
- 50 of 81 last three contestants (61.7%) won a Jupiter (we have never seen a podium without any contestant from the ultimate trio) ;
- 19 of 27 last in-competition displays (70.4%) won a Jupiter.

Between 1992 and 2013, the number of shows in competition was 8 or 9 per year (but 7 in 1999). Since 2014, there are only 6 competing teams, and the percentages have increased in all aforementioned categories. The figure has dramatically grown for the proportion of first in-competition displays to reach the podium (from 4.5% between 1992-2013, to 40.0% between 2014-2018), but these changes are based on small numbers of cases in the most recent period. Nevertheless, the overall pattern is still the same. Since 2014, the percentages of winning shows among the first three is 26.7% (4 out of 15) compared with 73.3% (11 out of 15) among the final three.

Since I do not expect a strong consensus beyond the Australian case, I think this long-term pattern is a good predictor of the 2019 podium. I do expect last three contestants to reach the podium.

Fred’s jury prediction is:

1. Howard & Sons (Australia)
2. Atlas Pyrovision (United States)
3. BEM Feux d’artifice (Canada)

There are also two separate awards - the Best Soundtrack Award and the Green Award - which are allocated by the competition organizers. Regarding the former, I favour the soundtrack of Grupo Luso Pirotecnia (Portugal) and I predict that it is going to be the choice of the organizers too. I don’t make any prediction for the Green Award as it seems to be based on unknown, insider information.

Fred

My ranking for the 2019 edition:

1. Australia
2. Portugal
3. Canada
4. USA
5. South Korea
6. Italy

I thought overall, this year's shows were good enough with Australia's display being the best. Some of the finales were excellent!

The park looked a lot more crowded on fireworks nights in the 90s. I thought this year's lower attendance is due to the warm/humid weather, but last Wednesday, it must have been the most crowded day (temperature was perfect for the GP).

My top 3:

Australia
Portugal
USA

Soundtrack: torn between Portugal and Canada, though USA was good too. In fact, all the soundtracks were good this year.

Jury prediction: I have no idea as I've heard too many things. I would hope they go with the same 3 in the same order as me ... but that almost never happens anymore. I'm sure there will be surprised. As for the green award? Maybe USA because of the plug-n-play one shot system that allows for some reuse of the tubes.

Paul.

Once posted in this forum, I rarely change my jury prediction. However, a particular event leads me to do a such thing today.

I have been extremely surprised, this morning, as i read comments about the Australian display on the Facebook page of L'International des feux Loto-Québec. Indeed, one prominent Canadian team member posted several comments, sometimes in reaction to what other users had written. The content and the time of his posts make me believe that BEM Feux d'artifice hasn't received the news the company was hoping for.

So I revise my jury prediction in favour of a ranking closer to my aforementioned personal ranking.

Fred's updated jury prediction is:

1. Howard & Sons (Australia)
2. Atlas Pyrovision (United States)
3. Grupo Luso Pirotecnia (Portugal)

Fred

Greetings! Been an avid but "silent" follower of the forums
since 2012, and reading from this website served as a nourishment that fills my passion on fireworks/pyromusical arts. This is certainly the #1 source of pyro info readily available and may it long be as long as the [internet] exist.

Here are my rankings for the 2019 edition

Personal Choices
Gold: Portugal
Silver: USA
Bronze: Australia

Jury Prediction:
Gold: Portugal/USA


Silver: USA/Portugal
Bronze: Australia/USA

Yet another edition of the Montreal fireworks competition comes to a close. As this 35th edition ends by this evening (July 27th, 2019), I will celebrate 30 years of attendance!

As with recent years, notably since 2016, I must first say that it continues to be increasingly difficult to journey to greater Montreal from the SW West Island. Due to the demolitions of the Turcot interchange, as well as other construction activities so common in June-August, traffic has been severe around the city, especially from Decarie to Highway 720 Eastbound. In addition, due to other construction activities on the bridge since 2018, the parking lot on Ste-Catherine Street near the bridge was again inaccessible. This diverted more attention to the now already limited parking space near the bridge.

Prior to 2016, the time to travel to the same destination, by car, was 31 to 33 minutes, from the SW West Island. However, the issue is not so much reaching there, but rather leaving after the fireworks. Indeed, when we used to be able to access the Ville-Marie tunnel from Viger Street, the time to reach the SW West Island was 38-41 minutes. Because Rene-Levesque and the tunnel are now no longer accessible reasonably quickly following the displays since the 2015 season, it takes now just over an hour extra to reach out here, on average.

Despite the persistent traffic issues endured since 2016, I have continued to enjoy coming to the fireworks displays routinely. I have always reminded myself how fortunate we are to still have this competition running, despite a fifth consecutive season of only eight displays. Thus, the Montreal fireworks competition still remains as a very important part of my Summer! For this 35th edition of Montreal fireworks, we observed a good range of themes across six enjoyable displays, as well as a fair range of products and effects used to represent these themes in a variety of ways. The level of complexity this year for me, however, was below average and was near-similar to what had been exhibited in 2017. Interestingly, like in 2008, and last year, this year made heavy use of drooping effects, such as horsetails! As Enkil mentioned above, too, the frequency of strong finales was good this year, continuing on a positive trend since 2015.

Concerning the weather, all displays up to this point this year generally had suitable sky conditions ‘during’ the 10:00-10:30 p.m. time slice. Conditions, therefore, remained consistently dry for fireworks evenings. Still, three of the display days experienced a risk for convective showers and/or non-severe thunderstorms earlier in the day (June 29th, July 6th and July 20th, with some potential for the afternoon of July 27th, as well). For three of the displays, smoke was moving towards portions of the La Ronde audience, including partially, which is about average for smoke-intercepted displays for the on-site audience. This included the South Korean, Canadian and Australian displays, with the smoke from the South Korean show being the most direct. For all displays, like last year, we observed temperatures no cooler than 20 C during the displays. Of all shows, the Canadian display/July 20th had the warmest conditions and the highest humidity (higher humidity and likely higher temperature than during the closing show today).

Actual conditions up to this point in the Spring-Summer period were also largely consistent with trends specified in my Spring-Summer 2019 outlook (please see the link presented in the very first post of this thread). This is particularly true with respect to the number of thunderstorms received so far this year in this general area, as well as the number of strong to severe thunderstorm development days. In addition, the overall temperature trend, as least for the island of Montreal and closely surrounding locations, was consistent for June and July, although June was less humid than expected, and the latter half of April into May were much cooler/wetter than anticipated.

I take this opportunity to thank Paul for continuing to keep this forum/website alive and well, with the forum now just over 16 years old! I also thank Paul for, once again, taking the time to provide us with such detailed inside information concerning each display through his interviews! I similarly extend my thanks to Mylene for all of her work in conducting her interviews and bringing us additional information! I also would like to thank Fred for his dedication and coverage of this competition! Since just over two and a half years after his passing, I took many moments this year, too, to remember Bob Burch and recognize his outstanding work in fireworks photography – as I expressed over the last two years, his passion for the competition will forever live with us. I also wanted to acknowledge Bob’s willingness to share full-length video footage for seven straight years (2010-2016) of the displays on-site for viewers who were unable to attend. In this respect, I would like to again thank forum member, jbbank, for kindly sharing his full-length videos, as viewed from La Ronde! Although noticeably quieter this year on the forum, I extend my thanks to all forum members for their continued contributions and continuing to share all of their thoughts and commentaries of each display (and in other discussions)! Finally, I would also like to thank all organizers for their diligent and hard work to ready all displays for us to see every fireworks night.

Below are my summaries for each display, highlighting briefly what I assessed as strong and weak aspects of the shows. Following this, you will find my personal predictions for the jury's decision, as well as my personal choices for the winners. Afterwards, for the fun of it, I have added subsequent sections for various criteria (such as best choice of music, best finales, best sequencing, etc.) and placed those participants best suited for each in accordance with my personal tastes.

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Participating country: South Korea
Company: Hanwha
Date of presentation: July 3rd, 2019

This was the only display where smoke blew most directly towards the audience of La Ronde, focusing on central and right-hand sections due to the light WSW winds. Still, a very warm evening temperature of about 26 C was present under largely clear skies for this first entrant.

I found this display to be particularly entertaining, as it introduced some fabulous sequences (especially with respect to the gerbs in “Celebration”), a rich color mixture, and a very innovative pyromusical design. I would have liked to see a little more use, however, made of the central tower, and more elaborate choreography that had been shown earlier in the display. The theme was also on the casual side, so it was not always clear how relevant some of the soundtrack were in relation to the theme of “Dreaming in Montreal”. The musical selection, nevertheless, was, for me, the most enjoyable this year (after the opening show’s). Some segments also terminated rather abruptly with a not-so-convincing conclusion, which did not do those particular soundtracks justice (such as “Happy”). The “pyroplane”, while interesting, also did not seem as effective as I had hoped (as compared to Switzerland 2012’s approach), although the crash, whether intentional or not, seemed somehow fitting with that portion of the soundtrack.

Overall, this display is definitely in contention for a Jupiter award, especially for the Bronze.

Participating country: Italy
Company: Parente Fireworks Group
Date of presentation: July 6th, 2019

A late-evening temperature of about 23 C, including during display time, was present for the Italian entrant. The low humidity and breezy Northerly winds meant that the smoke would be displacing rather quickly clear to the left of the La Ronde audience. The breezy winds also did produce a slight chill, but nothing significant.

This was an enjoyable display, which was entitled “One Step – Moon Dream”. We were treated with a reasonable selection of effects, and the musical choice was quite relevant to represent the theme – among the strongest this year. Product quality was further excellent in this display, and this show had the second widest scope of all displays this year. However, the lack of a more complex design and exciting moments did affect the enjoyment of the show for me, especially considering that there had been redundant firing patterns (notably to create the rainbow effect along low-level, or variations of it). Frequent use of horsetails to conclude segments similarly reduced the efficiency of transitions, emotional context and individual segment design. Color richness was also limited in this show, having the smallest range of color among the competitors.

Overall, this was a good effort by the Italian team, but I believe it needed less of a simplistic design, especially considering the nature of the theme.

Participating country: Portugal
Company: Grupo Luso
Date of presentation: July 10th, 2019

Very warm conditions were present for this highly anticipated display by Grupo Luso. The temperature was 28 C during display time, with borderline moderate-high humidity, inducing a humidex of 32 C. SSE winds of 9-13 km/h were also gently pushing the smoke clear to the right of the La Ronde audience.

This was a very enjoyable display, with a good diversity of color and (quality) products. The thematic premise (“Stay Tuned”) was mostly clear throughout the show, although it became somewhat more loosely understood later in it. Synchronization was generally excellent, although there were a couple of notable points where the pyrotechnics were still active after the music had concluded - this being especially true later in the show, during the “volcanic eruption” of colored stars along low-level. I would have liked to see, however, more of a variety of effects used to represent the soundtrack and, thus, the theme, as there later appeared to be more reliance on drooping effects and go-getters. The finale was stunning and carried with it the traditional style that has become so familiar with this team!

Overall, this was definitely one of the more enjoyable displays this year (as expected), but it was still less than I had previously envisioned in terms of complexity and, therefore, pyromusical design. This is very likely to be a contender for a Jupiter award, and perhaps for the Soundtrack Award.

Participating country: United States
Company: Atlas Pyrovision Productions
Date of presentation: July 17th, 2019

During an afternoon that featured isolated thunderstorms in close proximity to the island, and very humid conditions, the skies had largely cleared by late-afternoon, leaving behind some residual high-level cirrus. Warm evening conditions under moderate humidity were additionally present for the American display, and reasonably fast NE winds pushed the smoke to the left of and away from the La Ronde audience. At the same time, the smoke was drifting towards those on the bridge closest to the river and Notre-Dame Street.

The American show was one of the more thrilling of this year’s entrants, as it featured a larger density of shells, including at high-altitude. This was an especially relevant approach, as it was suitable for the theme of “Spirit of the Jungle”. The quality of products was excellent, and I enjoyed the selection of music to represent the interesting theme, since many were quite familiar to me. The finale was also the best of 2019 and one of the better finales since 2004. For a fair portion of the display, however, there was a fairly simplistic representation of the selected songs, with sometimes choices for effects that were not always clear. Therefore, the theme seemed more representative through the music than the fireworks themselves. At times, the opening of some segments showed great promise, but the luster or substance would diminish shortly after as those songs progressed. Consequently, the design of the display, technically and pyromusically, seemed more limited. The firing patterns of the mounted central tower were not always as captivating as I had hoped, but it still would have been nice to see the tower used during at least one or two other segments.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the display, especially with the dazzling finale (best one this year) and frequent high-altitude activity, even though this created periods of imbalance. It just would have been spectacular if the creativity component had been more elevated to better elaborate many of the well-renowned songs. The performance should be enough to be a contender for a Jupiter.

Participating country: Canada
Company: BEM
Date of presentation: July 20th, 2019

This was the warmest and most humid evening of all fireworks evenings this year. Wind speeds of 13-17 km/h, from the SW, meant that the smoke would be moving towards right-hand sections of the La Ronde audience (although this was more applicable for mid- to high-altitude smoke, as lower-altitude smoke was moving clear to the right of the audience). Temperatures remained close to 30 C, but with the very high humidity, it felt like 38-39 C. For the second time this year, too, a severe thunderstorm watch made an appearance during a display day. Thunderstorms, indeed, occurred over portions of the island of Montreal, and especially North of there, but thankfully, these declined in number by evening.

The Canadian display dedicated its show, entitled “The First Walk on the Moon”, to the 50th anniversary of the first landing on the moon, and first lunar exploration, which took place on the evening of July 20th, 1969. I was eagerly awaiting a very emotional and complex display that would allow for effective transitions to help capture critical moments that surrounded that time. Indeed, this was successful under several regards. A fairly good range of quality products were used to highlight the selected music (all of which were relevant), and color selection was good.

I was, however, awaiting a more diversified display that would encourage a design of higher complexity. Although some sequences were quite appropriate, there were many moments where the team could have taken advantage of more detailed choreography to bring to life the various soundtrack that were utilized. This was likely because of the limited number of firing positions involved, but there were still periods where the utilized positions had been seemingly enough to create more elaborate sequences. The finale was also disproportionately short relative to the large number of mini finales that were present throughout this show. The large number of small finales, while certainly very welcomed, also limited potential for more creative moments, unfortunately.

In general, this was a very enjoyable display – arguably one of the most enjoyable performances this year – but I suspect that the fairly repetitive firing patterns and style significantly limited the complexity of both the technical and pyromusical designs. Because of the lower creativity featured by this year, however, it is possible for the Canadian display to earn the Bronze Jupiter.

Participating country: Australia
Company: Howard and Sons
Date of presentation: July 24th, 2019

Ideal weather conditions made an appearance for the Australian display. An evening temperature of 22 C, coupled with low humidity, allowed for a comfortable evening. Winds were light, however, and under a NW wind flow that predominated the evening, the smoke was gently moving towards left-hand sections of the La Ronde audience (and towards those on the bridge behind La Ronde), causing the display to appear hazy from there.

This was a very well choreographed display by the Australian team. It featured the widest range of color and product selection to represent its theme of “Shapeshifter”. The interplay between effects was the most prevalent this year, and it substantially reinforced key elements that had engendered most soundtracks – at a notably higher degree of precision relative to most other entrants of 2019. The team took advantage of many firing positions, which meant that all altitudes of sky and most of the available space were very often covered. Subsequently, this effectively minimized the risk of imbalance between low- and high-altitudes.

That said, my most important concern was that the theme was very unclear in relation to the pyrotechnics, and even the musical selection. This made it seem like the entire display, despite how successful it was with its execution and choreography, had no real foundation to support it. Still, we have seen many displays in the past that had success with weaker thematic premises, and this, to me, appeared to be one of those. For these reasons, and given the complexity and higher degree of creativity featured by this display, I suspect that it will be awarded with the Gold Jupiter. The finale was also second best for me this year!

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Each of the displays, as always, interested me in different ways. The Canadian, American and Australian displays were the most exciting, but the Australian display carried with it a more careful balance of excitement, complexity and creativity, and it had the second best finale. By contrast, it had the weakest thematic connection. For myself, the theme is important, as it provides a given display with purpose and direction, and so if this component is largely missing, it does take something away for me. However, because the show was so successful in other components, this can more readily be overlooked. The Canadian and American displays were less robust in creativity and did not often significantly represent their musical selections as thoroughly as I would have hoped through the pyrotechnics. The Portuguese display was interesting in itself because of its choice of theme, but it had more periods of repetition, especially via drooping effects. I also very much enjoyed the South Korean display for its rich color selection, creativity and design, despite the lighter thematic connection. The South Korean finale was also enjoyable. With respect to the Italian display, it featured a wide scope and some fascinating sequences, but it needed more active periods to really captivate the audience, and a larger palette of color. After the opening display, the United States had the most enjoyable music selection for me, followed by Australia and South Korea. Finally, for me, the strongest emotions were expressed in the South Korean display, with the most emotional part of the display (and this year) in that segment “Never Enough”.

As such, I present here my jury predictions and personal choices for the winners:

Trav’s jury prediction:

1st: Australia
2nd: Portugal
3rd: United States

Trav’s personal choice:

1st: Australia
2nd: United States
3rd: South Korea

Green Achievement Award: ?

Best choice of music:

1. Portugal
2. United States
3. Australia

Most intriguing effects:

1. Australia
2. South Korea
3. Portugal

Best quality products:

1. Australia
2. South Korea
3. United States

Highest color richness:

1. Australia
2. South Korea
3. United States

Best devised and represented theme:

1. Portugal
2. United States
3. Canada

Best sequences:

1. Australia
2. South Korea
3. Portugal

Most powerful/energetic displays:

1. Australia
2. United States
3. Canada

Best opening segment:

1. Australia
2. Canada
3. United States

Top conclusions:

1. United States
2. Australia
3. Portugal


Trav.

Here are my predictions for tonight. Note that I missed the Australia show.

Personal ranking:
1. South Korea
2. Canada
3. USA

Jury predictions:
1. Australia
2. Portugal
3. USA