After a two year hiatus due to the pandemic, the 36th edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition, due to have been held in 2020, makes its return with two opening shows – one on June 25th and a second on July 2nd 2022.
GFA Pyro was originally scheduled to put on a “tribute to our essential workers” display for Labour Day weekend 2021, but this was cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. The show on June 25th, entitled “Je me Souviens” is essentially this show reworked a little bit to coincide with the Québec Fête National celebrations.
I interviewed Eric Cardinal, chief designer for GFA Pyro, for both of these opening shows. GFA Pyro was an amalgamation of Concept FiatLux (a company founded over 20 years ago by some of the original crew of the first season of the fireworks competition in Montreal and was headed by Michel Rioux) and Ampleman, founded by Eric’s father, Maurice Cardinal. Just recently Michel Rioux announced that Bob Deng of Lidu and owner of Canada’s oldest fireworks company, Hands, would be taking over as CEO of GFA Pyro. With Michel Rioux retiring from day to day operations, this leaves Eric as the chief designer and Maude Furtado as General Manager.
Eric told me that the pandemic had been difficult and that 2022 is the first year the market for grand entertainment spectacles has finally come back to life. He said that the company will be busy this upcoming St Jean-Baptiste and Canada Day season. For the Je me Souviens show, the soundtrack for this had been assembled by competition technical director Paul Csukassy at Studio Piccolo at the end of last summer.
Both shows will utilize all five firing ramps, including the floating pontoons (known as ramp 5). Eric said he particularly likes using ramp 5 as this gives some interesting depth to the display that would be impossible otherwise. Products will be largely Chinese, featuring supplies such as Lidu and Mystical, together with GFA Pyro’s usual Spanish supplier Igual as well as some Panzera products from Italy. Shells of all sizes will be used, including some 300mm (12″). Eric uses Finale 3D to help visualize the design of the shows and he said it was a bit more difficult for the first show as there are seventeen pieces of music, so this is more a challenge from the point of view of avoiding repetition.
The second show features an all-Prince soundtrack that Eric created and has fourteen pieces. In terms of complexity, the second show is the larger of the two with the equivalent of 88 32-cure firing modules versus 75 for the first – but both shows will be a mix of FireOne and Pyrodigital firing systems – largely due to this being the busiest time of the year for the company. The second show will also feature some “letter mines” for special effects during “Raspberry Beret”.
The weather forecast is promising perfect conditions for the debut of the 36th season!