I met with Yoon Duyeon and Park Yuoyong, representing Hanwha Corporation of South Korea for the company’s 4th participation in Montreal, but this teams’ first.
Hanwha, founded in 1952, is the largest fireworks company in South Korea and previously competed in Montreal in 1989, 1994 and 2008. The company won 2nd prize at the Pyromagic fireworks festival held in Poland in 2015 and performed the displays for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in 2018. More recently they organized a large fireworks festival in June of this year, held in Pohang.
Yoon designed both the soundtrack and the display itself, the latter using the non-visual version of PyroDigital’s ShowDirector, beginning the design process at the start of the year. She said that it’s not the size of the display that makes Montreal difficult for competitors, it’s the duration of the display (minimum 30 minutes) that sets it apart from others.
The theme of the display is “Dreaming in Montreal” and Yoon noted that dreams are usually not remembered so she wanted to ensure that that would not be the case with her display! Prior to joining Hanwha as a designer 11 years ago, she had majored in Industrial Design at University and is also interested in animation. She said that she doesn’t need to use visualization software to design her displays!
Since Hanwha last competed in 2008, they have focused on improving their technological capabilities. Wednesday’s display will be very interesting as a remote controlled plane will form an integral part of the display – its exact purpose and effects will be revealed on the night. Also interesting will be the the use of the tallest crane ever seen on ramp 2 in Montreal – an impressive 72m (236 feet – a tad taller than The Grande Roue at La Ronde). Atop the crane will be 14 circular slices each containing 30 shots – an effect Yoon said they are well known for in their home country.
On the technical side, there will be 21 positions on ramp 3, 9 pontoons (each with small towers to allow some interesting horizontal effects) forming ramp 5. Ramp 3 will also feature 21 4m high posts which will allow various interesting shapes to be created. A total of 350 PyroDigital FM-16 modules will be used in the display which will contain around 3500 one-shots. The crane will also be used to create a large Niagara Falls effect.
Hanwha doesn’t manufacture display fireworks so Yoon and Park chose suppliers from Italy (Parente), China (Sunny International) and Japan (Marutamaya and Tamaya). Aficionados of large calibre products will be pleased to note that there are ten 300mm shells in the display. Yoon had intended to use nautical shells but wasn’t happy how they tested so changed these to nautical cakes instead. She said she was particularly looking forward to the finale!
The weather forecast is ideal, too, with warm temperatures and light breezes predicted.
