The 11th Benson and Hedges International Fireworks Competition at La Ronde, Montreal, opened to an impressive display from the USA team.
The early part of the display was fairly ordinary, though there were some nice firefly type of star shells.
Later, there were some very good “shaped burst pattern shells”, some of which consisted of a ring of stars surrounding a five-pointed star. Other shaped burst shells produced the illusion of large multi-coloured butterflies filling the air.
Also, a lot of mines were used throughout the display, with some excellent colours.
Most of the show was nothing out of the ordinary, which lead a friend of mine who was watching to complain that it seemed a little slow. “Wait until the finale” was my foresightful comment.
I have never seen such an amazing finale. It must have lasted a full five minutes. All hell was breaking loose in the air with more shells exploding than could be thought possible. Many of these shells contained very large numbers of reports and salutes and some particularly large titanium salutes. The noise was fearsome. Just when it seemed that as many simultaneous explosions were occurring as possible, the pace increased. By the end of the display, I was left shaking and the audience response was incredible.
It was a truly remarkable beginning to the 1995 competition.