Trav,

Your instincts are absolutely correct. The majority of the viewing audience for the displays would be facing west/southwest.

Fortunately for me, last night, due to losing track of time at a restaurant in Old Montreal I rushed to watch BEM's display from alongside the Science Center and, despite not hearing the music very well, the was nothing to obstruct our view.

Great job by BEM.

Tyler

Tyler,

Thanks for the confirmation regarding the viewing direction. As I typically do for the Montreal fireworks competition with respect to smoke, I can now similarly integrate this information when assessing the winds for the last two upcoming displays.

Glad to see that everyone who has posted so far enjoyed BEM's display immensely.

Trav.

I just got back from seeing Royal's setup - should be an interesting show. Yanick was telling me of some new products that will be used tonight that are permitted in Canada for the first time. If everything goes to plan I'll video the show ... and one day soon when I have some time we'll have the member videos back on line

Paul.

^^^ Good news !

I seen the display tonight.

Great quality product, I seen some fireworks i never seen before, like haft circle shell, Green-Red crackling horse tail..etc.

Some cool single-shot sequence that spray almost all the lenght of the pier!

But like every years, same classic dragon egg barrage finale, and these cake still continuing after the soundtrack is been finished.

Well i more appreciate ampleman display and the maltese wheel from BEM, But the best show was from Ampleman, Next week-end FAE!!

Lots of interesting new cakes - I particularly liked the strobing horsetails - more of a pony-tail than a horsetail and the coloured falling leaf cakes were also nice. I also liked all the bright kamuros etc.

I won't be attending the FAE show nor did I see Ampleman nor BEM so I can't say which I thought was the best. It was good to see a large number of people attending though.

Paul

This was my first show as an assistant ( "aide-artificier" ) with Royal. It's much funnier than I though, although I wonder if I'll still like it as much after a few shows (I'd think so).

Cleaning the junk afterwards proved a bit difficult with all the snow; I'm eager to participate to a Saint-Jean or Canada Day display, as I think it's gonna be easier to pick up the fallout products in the grass than on a frozen terrain.

It's supposed to be nicer to prepare the show as well, as you don't have to dress with multiple layers to prevent yourself from freezing from the inside out.

About the show : let's just say that it was "Voilà!"'s spiritual brother, with an identical part of the soundtrack to boot. Luckily, Yanick Roy made good use of his brand-new line of products and therefore it was quite good.

Read the report and see the pictures on my website ! Added bonus : some anecdotes on my first experience on the firing ramps.

STL

STL,

it's quite the different experience being on the other side of the firing ramps, so to speak, isn't it. And, as you mention, the cleanup task is much underestimated by the public. My experience of shows in the summer is that you're rushing to do the cleanup before you get soaked by heavy rain!

Paul.

Like when i worked at L'internatinonal des feux Loto-Québec.. in 2007 after the england display, heavy rains is started very well like a waterfall and i worked with worker without raincoat and clean all ramp during the storm and start to remove mortar battery from the wet sand coming inside our boots.

Some worker cutted hand and arm very well from aluminum foil during this night.

Ton and ton of trash is everywhere but its the worst part of the work!

Later in that night, the rains still stopped but every mortar having the "Black Juice" and one of them lift the battery too fast on the pallet and is been wet on his white t-shirt and crying! Thats some good moment i see in Laronde.

I can heard bird gossip loud at 4h00 AM, its make me exhausted soo well, I'm wet and i start having cold and i frezze.

I never forget this night and all night at LaRonde, I know what is a World class fireworks display and i can repeat any time i want because is my passion, and now every show i do is no longuer "Trash" as I think now..

Jerome

I don't seem to recall a time where it snowed in copious amounts during any one of these displays. However, with the next Winter storm on the way, as I outlined briefly four days ago, we may actually witness snowfall (temperature permitting) during the final display (on Boxing Day) of this year's Fire on Ice event. The precipitation forecast continues to be tricky due to contradictory temperatures with altitude, but I'm thinking that we will initially start off with a good amount of snow, then this will transition over to freezing rain or ice pellets, and then to rain as temperatures warm in the evening. Winds, though, could be an issue, as well as freezing rain, if any. More on that in the upcoming days.

It seems that Royal Pyrotechnie was thoroughly enjoyed. I hope to see those new effects that most of you spoke of to present themselves in the competition next Spring-Summer - that, among other things, would be appropriate for 2010. It certainly leads me to wonder if we can expect any surprises next year - those new tail ring shells seen from both Australia and the U.S during last year's competition, for instance, were quite appealing.

Trav.