Sky Magic
Under a perfect summer sky, the 12th Benson and Hedges International Fireworks Competition at La Ronde, Montréal, opened to an enjoyable display by Marutaymaya.
The show began with a large number of mines followed by some very large shells containing bright white long tailed comet stars. These formed a very dense criss-cross pattern in the sky and seem to be something of a hallmark of Marutaymaya. At the end of this segment, a large number of big titanium salutes filled the sky.
The next segment was much more serene in nature with the use of many shells filled with firefly stars. One interesting feature of the stars used was that some of them were greenish and some of them were orangish in hue. This was particularly noticeable when both types were fired at once. Also, there seemed to be several different speeds of flashing stars – some were much faster than others.
One portion of the display was quite unique in that only a single (but very large shell) would be fired at a time but the synchronization with the music was perfect – the shell would explode exactly on the beat of the music. This continued for a couple minutes and was quite impressive.
There was a portion of the display which consisted of a large number of shaped burst shells. The shapes produced included the standard single ring of stars, a single ring surrounding a sphere of stars (looking like the planet Saturn), a very distinct heart-shape and, most impressive of all, a complete five-pointed star.
Other interesting features were the use of go-getter stars, combined with shells of tourbillons. Another unusual effect was that of pale blue stars which turned into green firefly stars towards the end of their burn.
The finale was quite dramatic though rather short, composing again of the bright long tailed silver-comet shells combined with a large number of titanium salutes.
Overall, it was an enjoyable but rather serene display and not the most exciting I’ve seen. Marutaymaya’s display in 1994 was more dramatic.