I met with Federico Tibaldi, one of the designers of the show from PiroItaly. Marco Bottazi is the main designer, but both had worked closely together on this display.
PiroItaly was founded in 1995 by Marco’s father, so this is their 30th anniverary Federico said that the company puts on around 250 displays per year of all sizes and that the La Ronde display would be one of their three largest shows in 2025. The company has placed amongst the winners in traditional fireworks competitions such as San Sebastien in Spain and won in the pyromusical category of the Malta International Fireworks Competition in 2018.
Federico had been on the PyroEmotions team in 2013 when they won the Gold Jupiter and said he had been involved with a lot of the logistics of the design back then. This was a ground-breaking display in Montreal with the then largest cue count of 8727 using the special PyroDigiT Italian firing system. Much has evolved since then and Federico said that that scale of show would not be feasible these days for various reasons.
He told me that it’s a special point in the life of a pyrotechnician to be able to come to La Ronde and take part in the competition and he views it as an honour, noting that he was especially excited to be here at, as he described, the best fireworks site in the world, for a second time.
Federico has a musical background and had been a drummer, talents that he employed during the development of this display with careful attention paid to dynamics and emotion. Their design style is to start with the concept, in this case, “Life’s Letters” and use that to develop the theme into a soundtrack and then this drives the design of the pyrotechnic effects. He said many companies start with whatever pyrotechnic devices they have in their warehouses and then work backwards from that. He said it took a total of three months to complete the design, but this also included the specification of new pyrotechnic effects which they had manufactured by their partner companies. San Pio of Italy and Europlas of Spain are the main suppliers, together with some other Italian companies such as Panzera. In total, 95% of the products used in the display are of Italian manufacture, with about 3% Spanish and the remaining 2% Chinese (such as water cakes and some other effects like crossettes that the other companies are not manufacturing).
On the technical side, the show is being fired using the same system, Pyromac, as ArtEventia of France used in their Gold Jupiter winning display in 2024. I didn’t get the exact cue count, but Federico told me there are approximately 2000 shells, 2000 one-shots and around 400 Roman Candles in the display. He said they were using three positions on the floating pontoons forming ramp 5 – only three because they are firing wide effects and the other 2 positions would not add anything. There are thirteen positions on ramp 3 and Federico said they are making full use of ramp 4 with some special three-layer three-D flower and other effects as well as an arch-shaped structure. Federico emphasized how important the logistics of the set-up are in achieving a good display that can be produced and fired in the time available and said he was especially happy to have the renowned crew of La Ronde assisting.
People who like large-calibre shells should be pleased as there will be ten 300mm shells and thirty 200mm. The 300mm shells will also include ghost-effects. There are some specially designed cylindrical star effects that will be fired as well as multi-colour changing one-shots and also special aquatic mines. I asked if we were to see the usual Italian-style finale and he did hint there would be some large number of 150mm calibre titanium salutes containing around 1kg of composition (for reference, the usual 75mm salute has around 100g of flash powder).
Finally Federico talked about the integration of the laser segments and said he had had good interaction with the company responsible for this and believes it should fit in well in the display. He said the challenge with lasers is the smoke – you can use the intervals to allow the smoke to clear, but you also need enough smoke to make the laser effects stand out. Let’s hope for good weather conditions this coming Thursday for PiroItaly’s debut in Montreal.