I'm rather depressed to report that the usage of this website and forum is less this year (well in the month of July at least) than it was last year - by around 10%. The forum, in particular, is really not very active, despite the best efforts of the very few members who do post. The sad truth can be seen in the category summaries:

2003: 34 topics 175 posts
2004: 37 topics 190 posts
2005: 36 topics 383 posts
2006: 27 topics 251 posts
2007: 25 topics 173 posts

Given that the competition is supposed to be the most popular festival in Quebec and seen by an average of 250,000 spectators per display - the number of people who actually visit and post here is minuscule. Literally, there are only a handful of people who post regularly (less than 10 in fact).

Whilst we have several ex-members of the jury: Fred, Passion, PyroDan, SalvaPower, I'm surprised how few ex-jurors we have. Every year there is a jury of 19 - are these people not interested in posting their opinions in the following years? Is the experience of the competition such that they're not interested anymore? Any ex-jurors who are reading this please let me know why you think so few of you actually participate here.

I realize that the majority of the audience (and jury) are francophone and I'm obviously an anglophone. Does the fact that the reports are in English create a barrier to participation here? People do post their opinions in French so it can't be that there's no French presence here. I am working on a project to get all the reports translated into French - it is a big task and will take some time - though I have to ask if it's worth it if there is so little interest here in general.

The whole situation makes me question whether I should continue with the website and forum at all - it does have a real cost, both in dollars for the name registration and webserver and a very big cost in terms of my time. If only a handful of people are interested, we could just as easily form a yahoo mail group and use that instead. Of all the forums I'm a member of, this one has the smallest number of active participants,

We can be sure that if less people start attending the fireworks competition, there is a very real possibility that it will stop entirely. Six Flags is in the business of making money and if they start to lose money on the fireworks, it will certainly be cut back. Already this year there was one less display than last year - this is directly related to lower attendance at La Ronde last year (possibly exacerbated by bad weather). Already I've heard that attendance is down again this year, also weather related (but possibly because the first displays were on Wednesdays rather than Saturdays). Saying all of this, though, is probably a waste of time as most of the readers here never go to La Ronde anyway - even though a season pass is about the cost of two tickets to the fireworks themselves. If people can't be bothered to support this competition, it will be over and you'll only have yourselves to blame.

So: what would entice more of you to actually go and watch the fireworks at La Ronde? Special rates if you buy tickets for several shows? You tell me here and I'll pass on the information to the management at La Ronde (though I do know staff there read the forum).

Yours in disappointment,

Paul.

Honestly, I have been having major issues with this forum this year. The servers seem to be really slow this year, to the point where I give up waiting for the forum to actually load and move on to something else. I don`t know if thats a reason why the post count has been down this year, but I do know that on a few occasions when I came here to post a review of a show I just wasn`t able to get onto the site at all.

Interesting to hear that Canuck. I've noticed on a few occasions that things have been slow - but I've been having general problems with my internet connection anyway so I've never been sure what the cause was. When I've accessed from other places, things have been fine. That said, I've also noticed pyroplanet.com has been very slow sometimes - and they use the same hosting company that I do.

I've just reported this to the support people at the hosting company so hopefully they can help determine if there's a problem at their end or not - in doing some tests I was getting page load times of over 11 seconds where they used to be under 0.5 seconds. Hopefully they'll be able to track down and fix the problem.

Paul.

[edit - since contacting support about an hour ago, suddenly everything is loading much faster - let's hope this is not just a fluke ]

this is sad indeed - perhaps there are less people posting and more people viewing and benefitting from their posts - have you noticed a decline in the bandwidth? as there might be lots of viewers who read the forums but do not register nor post.

Meh, I was actually expecting this kind of topic to show up sooner or later and I've even presented a thread a couple of years in advance about the general activity of this forum. As the most active member of this forum, I'm very disappointed to see such a relatively small proportion of posts given the shear magnitude in popularity of this glorious fireworks event in Quebec and possibly in all of Canada.

I've always had a clear eye on the amount of topics and posts during each competition since 2003 and this year there has certainly been a noticeable drop. However, with respect to topics, keep in mind that each show gains 2 topics (one for reviews and one for press releases), so that makes about 18 topics right there, plus 7 others for whatever related topic to the 2007 competition. Keep in mind that there was one less show this year compared to last year and the years before since 2003, so this season would have scored 2 extra threads and a few addtional posts, though it may still have been a smaller number of posts in the long run, but at least the same amount of topics as last year. However, one less performance is certainly an influence on the smaller number of posts and threads. If you look at some of the threads in 2005, a lot of them were pretty basic or simply addressed as questions, which we did not see much of this year. A lot of the threads involved ideas and discussions based on each performance before hand, or at least some form of question relating to it in terms of expectations.

Regarding watching from La Ronde on my behalf, keep in mind that I'm a West Islander and it's a pretty big effort just to travel to each performance as I do almost every year! I'm also quite constrained with traveling and this can become rather expensive with regards to transportation given that we don't have the metro here at all, unfortunately. Furthermore, I'm always typically going with family members since 1990, so it's virtually impossible for me to see all or any of the displays on site from La Ronde. Finally, it is an inevitable factor of convenience where the given benefits offered from Notre-Dame and De Lorimier are quite comfortable for the majority of people who do attend. La Ronde commonly has a maximum capacity of 33,000 people, while the bridge is capable of dealing with nearly 100,000. Others along the banks of the St-Laurence and elsewhere are estimated to be greater than these two combined due to reasons I've explained already.

Personally, I would be deeply sadened to see this website go down the drain in the near future given that I've been a faithful member/user for just over 4 years now (and visiting in the years prior to that), and I'm furthermore disappointed since my cummulative acquired posts since 2003 alone accounts for nearly 35% of the total posts in this forum's existence (almost feels like I'm the only one here!). I find this forum a very ideal and comfortable place to share one of my greatest passions and to do so by offering my various reports and comments and further exchange thoughts on whatever we may discuss.

I'm aware that many simply visit the forum but do not post; this is prevalent by the number of views for each topic. Also, if you take a look at the statistics page, which I frequently do, you'd see a vast number of users who are indeed registered, and yet only about a minuscule 1% (not even) of this value (10 out of the current 1271 users ) are actually frequent posters, commonly known as myself, Fred, Enkil, Rachel, Pierre, TRae, Dan, Roger, sometimes Jerome, occasionally Lars, and you, Paul. Furthermore, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people who have registered-in fact I believe nearly 1000 extra users registered in a relatively short period of time over the course of nearly a year and a half. Also keep in mind that anonymous posting had also been banned sometime early last year (or at the end of 2005) as I recall, so people may find this an inconvenience since it compels them to register. I'm fairly certain that some of these registered members are indeed ex-judges, which also raises the question in how come they don't post here and additionally share their insight. Regarding the French language, well, personally my French kinda sucks, so I'm actually pretty grateful the site is mostly English (and all I speak is English anyway with occasional French). However, perhaps if there are more French posts, people would feel more comfortable in posting? (Just a hunch)

It's obvious the forum is much less active in the Winter, but there's so much going on elsewhere in relation to fireworks. On New Year's Eve, we receive very little posts to spend time to talk about the fireworks that takes place worldwide. Even the fireworks that occur here in Montreal before and during the Christmas holidays generate very few posts, even though that's a much smaller event. The point is that besides the competition, fireworks are in fact a popular topic, but this popularity does not seem to be realized on this site. In relation to this competition, again, as a spectator since 1990, crowds on Notre-Dame were comparably much larger; so much to the convoluted point where you were literally buried by people.

Despite the obvious weather threats and the start of the competition on a Wednesday this season, I suspect that the general drop in population over recent years is because of the general lack of powerful finales. Let's face it, the finale obviously is the most popular piece of any display and that's most likely what everyone looks forward to, so it's not unreasonable to acknowledge this as a possible correlation. The majority of people are looking for excitement and power in a display and a finale is where that is most likely to take place. If an ending, for argument's sake, is powerful, it will compel people to return for more the next time for the following performances. For example, in 2005, this was the first year where such a small proportion of finales were actually mind-blasting, most notably France 2005. Furthermore, Panzera, the finale that supposedly does it justice in delivering the expected vehemence, lacked in the standards that most of us were hoping for, especially with the high expectations that obviously go along with it. In 2006, we saw a similar trend where there were very few successful finales to the level that would cause many of us to scream and nearly drop dead. Furthermore, Italy's finale was ruined by a technical problem and this was possibly one of the only chances last year to see something so big, in addition to that of South Africa's. And again, Panzera was comparably weak last year compared to what we've seen in the distant past. Now this season of 2007 was somewhat a bit more thrilling, but again suffered from mostly weak endings where about 4/9 were pretty much well done and 3/4 were excellent, especially Canada, somewhat Germany and more and less Panzera, in which case, Panzera was notably better than the last 2 years. When I read your reports in the past 2 years, including this year as well, Paul, and got to the concluding piece, I realized that it was rather rare when you've noted that infamous "WOW" or the "Out of Control" statements as part of the finale, which is indicative to me that you are able to keep up with the general finale paces.

There are a lot of forces at work here, but regardless if the general population attendance is in fact gradually droping, there are obviously a significant amount of spectators that still support the competition altogether, but the real question to ask is along the lines as to why we have such little participation and fluidity on this forum. I have mentioned the idea in the past, but is there some way we can make this site more recognized and subsequently make it more appealing and popular using some form of advertisement? You see, if people have a place to discuss each display and exchange their viewpoints based on whatever aspect of the competition (or pyrotechnics) in general, it causes an increase in popularity and the basic thrill of the competition itself.

May this website and the Montreal fireworks competition persevere.

Trav.

Trav,

most of the1271 registered users are in fact spammers with bogus websites. The volume of them makes it very difficult for me to keep track and delete them. Forcing registration removed 99.99% of the spam posts - but I can't stop the spammers registering - they probably use spambots to do this but their bots haven't (yet) figured out how to make posts in the forum itself. I'd say the are closer to 350 real users registrations.

The server and domain name is registered until at least July 2009 so we should be good until then

Paul.

Paul,

While the banning of the anonymous posting may work against the activity on this forum's pace, it is also simultaneously best to keep the forum clean from the onslaught of spammers, while inevitably saving you time, I suppose. The 1271 users, to my astonishment, were actually a little deceiving since there was such a radical increase in users in such a small amount time, as mentioned.

Assuming we're close to 350 "real" users, that still means that only about 3% (I'm being generous) of the registered users are the most active here.

Trav.

As if we're not sad enough as it is that the competition is over!

Well, as far as a decline in attendance at La Ronde for the fireworks goes, Paul, is that to say that the grandstands set up for the competition have seen a decline in attendance - or is it the number of people who go to La Ronde on the days of displays? I must admit that I only went to one display on-site this year (the closing display..gold section) and the grandstands appeared to be jam-packed. I was upset at the lack of response from the crowd when England was announced as the winners of the competition - I would have expected a standing ovation - but there was enough interest to sell out the place for an out of competition display - a good sign.

If in fact fewer tickets were sold specifically for the fireworks this year than last, then I would generally attribute it to the giant lack of media support. I have already written a letter to the editor for The Gazette and anticipate it being published this week.

As for ideas to encourage a boost in attendance inside La Ronde for the fireworks I would, offhand - I will think about this more - suggest that the promotion where an additional $2 on top of a general admission ticket gets you a guaranteed seat to the fireworks be marketed much more. I wasn't aware of this fact until well after the first display of the season. Next year I do plan on buying a season pass to La Ronde specifically to pay $2 on firework evenings... assuming the $2 deal works in accordance with season passes (if not, it probably should).

I also find that transportation may be a major reason why there is a drop in attendance. Still in the case of La Ronde, getting out of their parking lot after a display - referring to an experience after last year's closing display - is cause for much frustration. However when I went this past Saturday, using public transportation, I found it a breeze to get back - even easier than taking the Metro from Papineau station after walking from the Jacques Cartier Bridge. This is a definite plus which I was not expecting.

As I said, I have more to think about on this subject.

In terms of declining use of this website and forum, I would not blame it on lack of advertising or recognizability as anyone interested in sharing their opinions or interested in reading those of others can simply 'google' this place... that's how I came across it. Word of mouth will help I'm sure. I'm going to put the website url in each of my YouTube videos which may perhaps uncover a few more pyromusical fanatics.

With all due respect to Trav - and I ensure you that I have much respect for you, my friend - I do not believe that the lowering of standards for finales has any relation to the drop in the website activity or attendance - nor does blaming it serve any purpose. The displays will be what they will and while 2007 was not the most memorable for most, it was certainly another edition that had everything necessary to generate enough interest in the community and amongst tourists to maintain its popularity.

I have to start typing fast as I'm about to leave for a pickup baseball game, but, I also think that if there has been a decrease in viewership for the fireworks it could stem, in part, from people not wanting to use public transportation since, admittedly, it is kind of intimidating lining up at Papineau Metro station only to get into a hot, sweaty Metro car overstuffed with people. I actually admired how organized things were but for those not willing to put up with the slight inconveniences, I can understand them not returning.

Another thing, I see too many people watching the fireworks without a radio. To me, there is almost no point in watching the fireworks so long as you know that there is a soundtrack to them. it would not surprise me if many people are missing out on half of the show!

Alright, gotta go. Let's keep the brainstorm alive. I didn't fight hard enough for the Expos... the thought of letting this competition die is too upsetting to consider for more than a few isolated minutes.

Have a great night all!

TRae,

About the assumptions based on the finales, although it sounds a little strange (sorry if I sounded as if I was blaming it; I didn't intend to, though ), I personally would not rule out the possibility of this affecting people's better judgment. This is absolutely not to say that I solely care about the finale aspect myself, but rather that it's a mere possibility among other things. However, I echo the sentiment about the actual popularity sustenance since this indeed attracts such a vast number of people each for every display that its actual title and distinction are ensured, regardless of the finale.

I do also agree with the fact about many people not equipting themselves with a radio since this rather defeats the whole purpose of a pyromusical. In some sense, a fireworks display is still a fireworks display and this is what binds people in seeing the sky being decorated by the various effects and color along with the general pow pow. It would however be really nice to see many spectators to come and join is in discussion. If there was only a way to get them here...

That said, I believe strongly in my heart that each display a delicately crafted art form for all the individual spectators to see with their own eyes, causing them to react in a variety of emotion. Taking such entertainment and passion away from the public and the city of Montreal itself is an injustice by itself, and if need be, I am prepared to defend this competition by all means.

Trav.

I've been thinking hard about this, and so I'll just throw my own opinion and observation.

About the server being slow

It's true that sometimes, it takes about 5-10sec to access the website, but I've seen worse sites. Actually, I don't think that this is a serious problem, and I can live with it.

About the cost of this website.

Paul, I know that Powweb is your webhost. I don't know how much it costs you to run this website yearly, but it costs me less than 100$ to run one website, and my domain name and webhost is run by GoDaddy.com. It costs me 5$ per month for a very reasonable webhost. And I've never had any server problem.

If money is an issue, perhaps it's time to add some ads on your website? I know they're ugly and annoying, but if you try Google Adsense, you'll see that it's very neat and simple. I make several hundreds of dollars with this program yearly, and who knows, you might make some extra cash if you receive many visitors daily.

About the public and competition

I discussed this topic several times with Smoke this year. I'm just going to say what I think and be honest.

I think the main reason why the attendance was lower again this year is because of the weather. Every time there is the slightest threat of rain on a fireworks day, it seems to scare off a good portion of the public. I know this and I've noticed it every time. On a beautiful and hot day (example, Germany 2007), the whole place is PACKED, and I'm sure it's the same situation in La Ronde. It's just this bad luck we've been stuck with for the past two years. I think that this is the main reason why attendance has been lower than usual.

I've also discussed with Smoke about the finales. I do agree with Smoke, but I've noticed other factors. I, myself, am pretty much an observer. I tend to watch how the public behaves and reacts during and after a show.

During a show, typically, the average person (not necessarily a fan like us) cheers when he/she sees a huge shell exploding. The public also cheers when parts of a show get intense in the sky. Even if a show is very well designed and very creative, most of the cheers are for the intense parts and the finale. The finale is where the public goes really nuts. I admitted it to Smoke that I've also lost much interest, and I've attributed this on the lack of intense finales. Or maybe, it's just because I've grown up and don't feel as excited as I used to be. I still have to think about it.

I've tried to analysed this situation, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it's just human nature. Most of us here take the fireworks competition very seriously because there's something in us that keeps us attached to it, but the general public doesn't feel the same way. Most of the people who attend the competition just go there to watch fireworks. They are delighted when they see creative segments, but they are even happier when they see "something big."

These days, I believe that most of the pyrotechnicians want to try new things. They want to concentrate more on design and creativity. For them, a real finale is a thing of the past, and besides, they cost too much money, but this is not necessarily how the public sees it. In most cases, for the average viewer, the memorable part of a show is the finale. However, it would probably take more than two years for the great mass to notice the decline of intensity in finales and start reacting. Probably they still haven't even noticed it consciously or don’t really care since they always cheer to whatever is presented to them.

But can we really blame the lower attendance partly or mostly on finales? I don't really think so. I know for a fact that watching the shows from La Ronde and Notre Dame Street or the bridge is different. The atmosphere in La Ronde is very different than on Notre Dame street. For one thing, at La Ronde, they do a little bit of introduction before the show starts, and for another thing, you almost feel like you're "in the show." People who watch it from La Ronde appreciate more the display and its design, etc.

And after a show and all the cheering ends, notice how the people around you quickly change subject and talk about something else? This is because unlike us, they just don't really take the competition seriously. They don't see why they should share their opinion with others. What's the big deal? I don't think that they even bother googling "montreal fireworks" (or in French). How do they get the schedule? I don't know, but one of these 250 000 people once told me that she gets the schedule from the official website. But what about the rest of the public, which make up probably around 2-3%? Maybe 10% of the 2-3% visit the board and actually research about the "montreal fireworks" on the internet.

These visitors should know that it takes less than 10sec to register on this board and they don't need to reveal their identity.

About La Ronde

Smoke pointed out his reason as to why he can’t watch the fireworks from La Ronde, and I think it is a reasonable one. As some of you know, I really am not social person, and I haven't found someone specific who would consider going with me to La Ronde every fireworks night and do some rides on other days. I don't consider 100$ for a pass season expensive at all, but I don't want to go there alone.

However, I've been running out of patience and to be honest, I much prefer watching the shows from La Ronde, rather than from Notre Dame street. Like I said, watching from La Ronde is a lot more exciting and the atmosphere is totally different. I know this because I used watched all the shows in 2000 and previous years from La Ronde. So I might consider going to La Ronde next year, but we'll see. I'm sure I can convince someone to go with me.

This is a very interesting topic, and it's clearly a wake-up call from Paul and the staff at La Ronde. The main problem is getting people to go to La Ronde. It seems that they can't even reach the maximum capacity nowadays.

So, I personally would say that if there are fewer people attending the shows these past few years, it may be because of the weather and all the threats. Let me know if you disagree with me. I can't remember if in the 90s, the small weather threats used scare away the public.

I'll do some more thinking about this and try to come up with ideas.

Hi guys,

The lack of interest can only be blamed on La Ronde for the lack of publicity. I remember in the late 90s when every country had their own special commercial. The commercials' originality mixed with a high rotation made for a very effective way of promoting this original event. However, ever since Benson and Hedges lost the right to promote this event, the fireworks festival had it's popularity decrease. When the SAQ took over, the commercials were immediately replaced with one "universal" commercial which did have the same originality to it. Presently, Loto-Quebec has three fireworks festivals, which brings confusion. Whenever I see the Quebec festival ads in the metro, I think why is there no ad for our festival? Finally, the ever increasing price of tickets mixed with the arrival of new festivals in Montreal, has not helped the fireworks festival in any way. Hopefully, we will finally see a special "fireworks Pass" next year.

La Ronde is getting old, maybe it's time for our festival to become young again! New seats would be a nice welcome...

A worried fan,
Dan

Ce fil de discussion est très intéressant et déterminant pour la suite des choses. Il y a une érosion de l'assistance aux feux à La Ronde. Cette année, quelques améliorations ont été apportées pour rendre l'expérience un peu plus satisfaisante (ouverture des manèges jusqu'à 23h30, présence d'un bar/discothèque ouvert jusqu'à 00h30, billets à prix réduit pour les 50 ans et plus), mais leur effet est peut-être annulé par les détériorations sur d'autres plans (coût plus élevé des billets en général, prix du stationnement majoré à 20$ les soirs de feux, entretien inadéquat des salles de toilette, etc.). Dans l'ensemble, je pense que La Ronde est en grande partie responsable de ce déclin, en raison d'un ensemble de décisions prises depuis la fin des années 1990/début 2000.

Je crois que nous devrions concentrer notre ttention et nos efforts sur le site web qui nous réunit. Nous ne réglerons pas les problèmes de La Ronde (une entreprise qui n'arrive même pas à gérer décemment son site web au moment de l'année où nous en avons besoin), mais nous pouvons influencer le développement de notre "communauté" d'amateurs de pyrotechnie que ce site anime depuis quelques années.

J'ai eu une discussion avec Paul sur ce sujet samedi soir. Je l'ai assuré de mon soutien. J'ai quelques idées susceptibles de "relancer" le site web mais, comme lui, je m'interroge aussi sur la pertinence de consacrer le temps requis pour faire ces choses. Je suis certain que Paul sonde votre opinion avec un esprit d'ouverture et que vos commentaires reçoivent beaucoup d'attention.

Paul, I suppose that you have the e-mail of all members of the forum. Is it difficult to send an e-mail (like a newsletter) to all them? I know that the newsletter of PyroPlanet.com appears as an effective way to bring people on the website. I think that the unactive members are the audience that you should target first.

Fred

Given my extensive work in bringing forward the weather to you guys this season, well, I'm kind of ashamed to have not acknowledge it extensively in this discussion until I read Enkil's post. Seeing that 6 out of 9 displays were threatened by rain, the weather may have certainly been a real decisive factor in this ordeal.

As you may not know, weather conditions this fireworks season were quite treacherous and brought with it many days of rains, simply cloudy, or even cooler days with it. It is to my belief that the weather is probably the most highly influential factor as part of the general decrease in population this season. Weather is also a serious psychological influence and it fools with our minds in a number of ways. I'm certainly not only speaking on behalf of the constant precipitation threats, but rather because this past Summer has not exactly been the best that it could have been over the course of June and most of July, so I strongly believe in my heart that this has somehow led to discouraging people from venturing out as frequently as they'd like to. The weather is again a powerful aspect to this situation, but it also tends to scare people even when there's the slight risk of anything developing (doesn't even have to be in Montreal). Also take note that it does not necessarily have to do with solely the risk during the evening hours to discourage people from attending since rain occuring during the day time also plays a pivotal role in attendance. Weather threats also compel people to be prepared and they probably would not want to hamper themselves with umbrellas and other related gear, such as jackets; everyone looks for the easiest road towards convenience. It is also a reality that when rain falls, or the place becomes dark in setting up for thunderstorms (as in the case this year), people are led to believe that this same scenario will equally occur during the evening hours, even though there is a possibility of it ending by the time of the fireworks (again the case this year); very few are willing to take that chance-I'm talking from experience based on the perception of my family.

Aside from the weather, Dan and Fred also pointed out another factor related to the level of commercial enforcement and publicity since the year 2000. This may in fact correlate with my statement about the population being noticeably larger, and therefore popular in the years before 2000 rather than after it. Also, it is true that the cost of attending La Ronde has also been becoming increasingly expsensive, which all due respect does not offer too much benefit!

All that said, it would be great if we could get a hold of recent approximations of population attendance in the past 3 years, including this year.

Trav.

Greetings and Bonjour from Philadelphia.

I am writing, I hope, as a representative of the many who regularly visit this site and forum but live many miles from the epicenter of fireworks heaven in which you regular contributors are so very fortunate to live. This forum is a regular stop in my day during the summer and I love to read your reviews and commentaries.

My wife and I have made an annual “anniversary” trip to see a fireworks show for each of the last 5 years and have come to love Montreal. In fact, we just got back to Philadelphia from taking the whole family to watch the closing show Saturday night, after having just been up there on our anniversary weekend two weeks prior. That was the second time we’ve taken the family up after our weekend, so I’ve seen 7 shows in 5 years.

I’ve never posted before because it’s impossible to contribute anything besides “we went to the show and it was really great” if you don’t have any other shows to compare it to during the competitive season. Nevertheless, this site and its contributors have become familiar friends that I have grown to trust.

Throughout the winter I regularly check this site to get the schedule so we choose who we want to see and plan our entire summer around that date.

I clearly remember coming upon this site when we were first thinking about going to Montreal and learning about all the places we can go to watch the show. It was IMMENSELY helpful (and made me look really smart in front of my wife; and we all know how great THAT is ).

I recoiled in horror after reading about the city’s attempt to get the festivals to pay for their own police security and the jeopardy that places the fireworks competition in. As such, I made a conscious attempt over our last two visits to tell the hotels and restaurants and other places where we spent money, that we were there because of the fireworks and that they might go away if the city is successful in charging La Ronde for security. (By the way, I hope you can keep us posted on any developments on that story.)

Paul, it’s clear that you’re wondering if “anyone is out there” and if you’re working very hard on something that’s simply evaporating into the ether. I’m here to say “thanks” for all of your work, along with the contributions of the regulars, and also to say that I hope you decide to keep going. I would miss this terribly.

Chris,

thanks for taking the time to write. If you're been to see a display here more than once, you're well qualified to comment on what you've seen - even if you have nothing to compare it to in the current season. I do intend to keep the site going as long as possible, I just sometimes question how interested people really are when there are so few that post.

Fred: I do have all the email addresses of everyone who registered, but I don't like to take advantage of them by sending out unsolicited emails. I'll investigate to see if there's an opt-in "newsletter" kind of function that I could employ.

Trav: when La Ronde was run by the city of Montreal, attendance figures were released. Now that it is a commercial operation, this information is considered confidential and is not released. It's difficult to judge, though, how many seats are really taken for a display - it is also hard to know the true cost of putting on the competition since a portion, at least, of this is borne by the sponsors so I doubt the delta on the admission cost for a seat covers the cost of the displays. I have the feeling that most of the people who are at La Ronde and not in a seat are season pass holders - and there's plenty of places for them to see the display pretty well.

I have a feeling that Six Flags will have to investigate different marketing strategies - though I honestly believe attendance at La Ronde over a season would be massively lower if it wasn't for the competition. Of course, it's impossible to know what it really would be!

Thanks, everyone, for your support.

Paul.

Hi Paul,

With respect to attendance, in the information section it is stated that all combined spectators viewing from all areas around or near the fireworks site are estimated to be in excess of 500,000 people when the weather is warm. I have a feeling that this figure may have possessed more truth to it in the years prior to 2000, but I still think it may have been exaggerated to some extent. The average presently approximated per display is about 1/2 that figure, but it would certainly be nice if indeed about half a million people attended each performance! Regardless, it is clear that the largest crowd is always on Panzera nights since it is in fact the final display and the level of anticipation that goes along with it. Even though there was the threat of rain, I do strongly believe that even this year this night had the largest audience, possibly closer to 350,000 people as a personal approximation given the time it took for everyone to clear out and the general clusters of people on the streets before hand.

With regards to the competition, I personally think that it's unreasonable to even begin to consider terminating the competition. Not only would the attendance be lower if it were to be "extinguished", but a lot of money would simultaneously be lost (especially with respect to tourism) on La Ronde's part if this were to become a reality, simply due to the relative popularity of the event altogether. Similarly, if the fireworks vanished, so to would La Ronde's popularity, attraction, and therefore of course its attendance. The competition holds a lot of economic value to it, so eliminating it would only do more harm than good and at the same time destroy our city's and province's greatest attraction, not to mention losing the title of the "largest fireworks competition in the world".

But alas, with a new season approaching also brings with it other possibilities, and maybe next season we'll score more posts than that of this year; perhaps this time around was just a temporary drop off and we're very well moving into a recovery stage.

Thankfully we get a decent share of general and news topics to keep things afloat.

Edit-I do intend to keep the site up as long as possible.

That's the spirit.

Trav.

If you think about it, we've still been having a fairly decent amount of posts coming in this past season, even though it was a drop compared to previous years. Also, notice that we've had an increase in topics and posts in the fireworks photography sector, thanks to Rachel. Furthermore, we saw quite a bit of posts in both the news and general sections as well.

I'm fairly certain that because we were short one display this year, besides the influential aspects of the weather, it may have accounted for the number of topics and posts to some extent. Again, let's see what happens next year, and then we can further some conclusion, but I certainly wouldn't throw in the towel just yet.

Best of luck to a more prosperous upcoming year for this forum, as well as a good ending to this year.

Trav.

your forum is too hard too read, not user friendly enough...

i suggested a couple weeks ago that you use phpbb but i dont remember you even replied to my suggestion...
exemple of phpbb forum :
http://www.montreal-subaru-club.com/mscforum/

that's the main reason why i haven't come at all these past few months

Kamuro,

there are a couple of reasons I don't use phpBB. One is that forums using phpBB all look, well phpBB-ish! I agree that phpBB (and postnuke for that matter) forums have a lot of nice features, but they have some downsides too. They are frequently the target of hackers- everyone I know who runs a high-profile phpBB site has had it defaced at least once. phpBB is also more resource hungry than the miniBB software I'm using here - and when I first started this forum I needed something fairly lightweight. Even now, powweb has problems with some of its SQL servers that cause this forum to be much slower than it should be - but that's the SQL side, not the php side.

The main problem now to change to phpBB (or any other software for that matter) is the effort it would require to migrate all the posts and the user accounts. But I haven't ruled it out. The nice thing about miniBB is that it was very easy to integrate the look-and-feel into the rest of the site here through the CSS files I had already set up. If I didn't have a full time intense day job with a lot of travel, I'd consider it more closely - but I'm not fully convinced that people don't participate here because of the forum software itself. I could be wrong though!

Paul.

Here are my thoughts...

First thing is don't let the numbers decieve you. There are in fact thousands who click on the site. If there is a rise on the competition season it means they are interested. For the off season you can bet there are countless choreographers who are reading how previous companies competed so that they too can compete properly, use ideas, or study of what not to do.

This website is in fact a very valuable tool. I remember Paul saying that video could replace his reports and all he'd have to do is sit back and give his opinions. Though I agree I also disagree. Paul has taught many Pyro's the terminologies used in displays. He has to fight and find the words for what he sees in the sky. This is problematic as the world all describes things differently. Though video would give use nuances that Paul might have missed he is in fact writting most of them down which is easier to study (for our own displays) than watching hundreds of hours of video.

I started a website not so long ago called www.PyroPlanet.com I'm very proud to have half the visitors that Paul has on his website yet it's very young. I thought that most of my visitors were robots and spammers and so I put in blocks to keep my numbers 'real'. Well it still got me concerned... until I attend firework conventions. You'd be surprised how many people say "hey I love your website". (when they know it's you that is) Paul has experienced this at every competition he attends, and if he were to travel to USA he'd get it a million times more.

I've talked to fellow Pyro's and some say they are amazed at the amount of time it takes to even write in the forum. They personally don't have time to do so, and no time to read them. (I'm sure if it's about them they would.)

There is many good reports written in the forum.

So my ideas are as follows:

1) Provide a guide on competiting, generally and specifically in La Ronde. Have other writters contribute and make it a collaborative effort. Perhaps start a members only Wiki.

2) Design a Montreal-Fireworks logo and brand the name. Put it on a t-shirt and sell it to 'support the website'. You could have things like "I watched the best competition in the world and all I got was this t-shirt, which I had to pay for!"

3) Invite more writters for other competitions. This may sound easy but in fact no one feels confident to do so. You may find 2 or 3 and that may be enough to open it up to more types of competition.

4) Invite the other reporters on the forum to write their reports side-by-side to Pauls. Use the forum as a place to discuss the displays but keep the reports in the competition page.

5) Create a list of music used in every year of the competition. Perhaps go back and mark off the number of times it was used. Or how many trophies it got. We have enough people on here to make the project happen.

6) Sell seasonal t-shirts of the competition. These can be done digitally through Cafepress (does decent printing as I bought a shirt) It could be made a month in advance so we can all buy our t-shirts and wear them at the competitions. The deal could be if you see someone wearing one say hi to them. Or we could get companies to give us free stuff and anyone wearing the t-shirt would get a freebie (if seen)

7) Cross promote through other websites. Fred and I make sure PyroPlanet competition reports link back to here. There are many other sites.

8) Realize the site is bigger than you think.

9) You can sign up another Sponsor of the site who is not in Canada. That way there are no conflicts.

10) Comment on the above ideas! (I had to make it to 10)

Thanks,

Bill

Nice post, Bill, and great ideas as well. Speaking of videos, I believe Paul mentioned that he would attempt to create an additional section dedicated to any video footage taken by the members here. It would be convenient since it would be easy to retrieve any video at a latter time, while also giving the site an additional appealing look to it with a neat collection/list of videos.

Another idea I had in mind for years now, which brayno touched on to some extent just now, is to create a "guide" or help section to identify fireworks' names, using photos or short amount of video. I've actually already created a thread to ask about certain effects by posting an image, and then having someone identify it for me. The glossary helps up to a point, but I personally think that seeing the effect visually helps much more to enforce the explanations provided in the glossary itself.

Edit-Paul, I never got down to it since you changed the color scheme of the site last year, but if you go to the statistics section, the bars at the bottom representing the numbers for most popular topics, most active registered users, etc., are missing due to the grey background. Just wanted to point it out.

Trav.