Certaines personnes ont crû voir des indices dans le libellé de mes prédictions. Elles ont sans doute trop d'imagination. ;-)

Fred

My predictions and wishes:

Firevent , Pyrovision or Styrfire (my favourite) representing Austria

Dragon fireworks representing Philippines

Vulcan representing China

Royale representing Canada

Pyrotechnico representing USA

Howard and sons representing Australia

That would be an incredible lineup!

Thank you for sharing this information, Fred.

It is, indeed, an interesting schedule, and I am pleased to see the return of Australia. Nice to see the Philippines make an appearance, though it will certainly feel strange with only one European entrant!

All we need now is for, as always, ideal weather conditions (at least in large part) to govern display days, and for setup.

Trav.

We have:

Royal Pyrotechnie for the opening
steyrFire representing Austria
Dancing representing China
Apogeé representing Canada
Official Dragon representing The Philipines (designed by Vander!)
Pyrotecnico representing The USA
Howard and Sons representing Australia
Rozzi / Panzera for the closing

See https://www.sixflags.com/larondeen/linternational-des-feux/program

Paul.

MAGNIFIC

MAGNIFIC

I knew you'd all like it

Paul.

This is definitely a great line-up, with promising recruits and previous contestants with a good record in Montreal. It is also interesting to look at the theme of each display:

Saturday, July 7 - Royal Pyrotechnie (opening show) - Tribute to ABBA
Wednesday, July 11 - steyrFire (Austria) - Let's Dance
Saturday, July 14 - Dancing Fireworks (China) - The Butterfly Lovers (300th show)
Wednesday, July 18 - Apogée (Canada) - Immortals
Saturday, July 21 - Dragons Fireworks (Philippines) - Of Games and Thrones
Saturday, July 28 - Pyrotecnico (United States) - Rock Loves... Redux
Wednesday, August 1st - Howard and Sons (Australia) - Shapeshifter
Wednesday, August 8 - Rozzi's / Panzera (Closing show/Feux des étoiles) - For your eyes only (James Bond)

10 years after its award-winning debut display "Rock Loves", Pyrotecnico is back and it will revisit the same theme. Also in 2008, Sunny International (China) won a Bronze Jupiter with "Forever Love", which was based on the same Romeo-and-Juliette-style story than Dancing Fireworks' "The Butterfly Lovers".

Generally speaking, most themes seem pretty traditional (dance, movie soundtracks, pop). However, the Australian one is a bit mystical for now. And the Philippine concept, which integrates musics from video games, a not-so-common repertoire in the history of the competition, sounds original. I am looking forward for Dragons Fireworks since long-time forum member Vander (reflections-of-earth) works for this company since a couple of years.

With a tribute to ABBA, a fit for the well-attended "Feux des étoiles" series, La Ronde has decided to mimic the strategy with hope to create a buzz and to attract a larger crowd for its opening show. It is a good move and Royal Pyrotechnie has a fabulous record in Montreal. For the closing, Rozzi's Famous Fireworks (with collaboration of Panzera) did a very good opening show in 2017, so it is also a good choice in my opinion.

I am confident that we are in for a treat!

Fred

And applications for being a jury member are now welcome, too:

https://www.laronde.com/fr/larondefr/linternational-des-feux/jury

Fred

Only one month to go! I already have the flight! Im super exited. I ve been trying to buy the tickets for the shows, i will be in montreal for 3 weeks, i ll attend all competition shows, from steyrfire to howard and sons. The thing is that in la ronde webpage there is no option to choose the seat, only the section, which is really bad since i want to record the shows and i would like to have a good spot (the one in the concret platform in the middle of silver section looks a good one). Do you know if there is any store where i could buy the tickets and choose the seat? In 2005 I remember buying the tickets in a mall close to downtown ( cant remember the name) and they let me choose the seats. I have some friends in Montreal so they can buy me the tickets in any store where they are sold.

If I cant choose the seat do you know if there is any good spot to record the shows? I think close to the pyro cabin is a good spot but i cant remember if there is any free space there. I dont want to see audiences heads in the video, moreover I have a tripod so depending on the seat it would be quite complicated to open it. I dont have a super camera but enough to make some random hd videos, and since my last time in Montreal my video camera broke during the 2nd show now i want to do it properly.

Rovira, could you send me a private email?

Fred

Sure! Right now

Hi Fred, I've also been looking for a good vantage point to take proper videos. Last year I was able to take a few but do you know who I might be able to talk to to be able to see if they would grant me access to the booth or at least an area I could use to have a good view? I was hoping to donate my time to take good 4k footage of all the shows. I have the equipment already, so I was hoping to make good use of it to be able to give something back to the community.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

@Jbbank is it sure that you are recording all shows? If you are doing it maybe i wont record the shows. My equipement is not that good so if you are going to take proper videos its a waste of effort and time to do it with my random camera.

I know a pyroyoutuber will be in Montreal for the philippines show, but im not sure about the other shows.

Hey Rovira, my plan is to record all the shows provided I could get access to a good location. As a spectator, the rules in place at la ronde are also a bit confusing. Once I was not allowed to record, another time I was told that using a tripod was not allowed. That never seemed to stop many people doing the same once the show started.

I've always enjoyed photography and more recently have been dabbling in videography. All these years, I've never seen good quality recordings of the shows that I think it deserves. Now that I have a 4k camera with some wide angle lenses to capture it, I was hoping to give that back to the fireworks community.

Good luck Rovira! Choosing a suitable seat has been a persistent problem for the last three years. Fredbastien has attempted to alert La Ronde that this can be a truly troublesome issue, but they do not seem to care. I and my wife have dealt with this problem by joining forces with another USA couple and booking ticket blocks for multiple shows via La Ronde 'Group Sales' - they are able to select seats at requested locations. Competition director Martyne Gagnon, who I contacted by email, helped to get this set up the first time. Hopefully, Fred will be able to help you. Best Regards, Bob F.