Please post your reviews/comments for the opening display here!

Cheers,

Trav.

Here we go! The season has begun.

A respectable opening show for the season. The shells were decent and had some unique effects.

I found the middle of the show was somewhat lacking and repetitive. There were segments where the space was not well used and the colours were lacking (lots of whites).

The Super Mario segment was clever and had a lot of great moments that relate to the game. For example, there was the exploding "coins", catching "hearts" (or lives), the "hurry up" music and more.

The synchronization, outside of the Mario segment, was more atmospheric which is not really my preference. I like to see tight, relevant synchronization between segments.

As well, the soundtrack was really enjoyable; however, there were too many breaks between songs.

That said, it was a nice way to start the (cool) summer. Here's hoping that Wednesday is not as "Chile" (pun intended).

The opening night of the 32nd season of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition began with a very good display performed by a Canadian “recruit,” Apogée, in front of a larger audience than I expected, thanks to clearer, dryer, and less windy weather conditions than early in the day. With an inaugural display on July 2nd, it was the latest kick-off. That is a long-term trend in the schedule strategy, with hope to attract larger crowds as soon as the competition begins. It was nonetheless a cold night for early July and we smelled the smoke for 30 minutes owing to the westerlies.

The theme Our Heroes emphasized characters of famous movies and video games. That was a more distant connection to the Canadian Armed Forces than the 2015 tribute. Indeed, for a second year in a row, La Ronde partnered with the Canadian Armed Forces and the opening show was part of a larger event celebrating the military institution and those who serve within the army. In a society where many people have negative or conflicting attitudes toward the army, it was odd to see a parade of four tanks as I arrived by the main entrance, and to hear a fighter aircraft above the midway. This ambivalence is illustrated by a rare piece of media coverage, which emphasized this issue instead of the fireworks show itself ( see here ). Other than that, I have not seen a lot of media coverage, in opposition with the suggestion made by this ad of a Canadian all-news channel which promotes its capacity to be live on the breaking news with pictures from various events, including my favorite summer festival.



The Royal 22nd Regiment designed and recorded the soundtrack of this off-competition opening display. Having an orchestra to perform the musics is potentially a very interesting idea as it leads to different interpretations of famous pieces, some of them having been heard several times in fireworks shows. For instance, the performance of I Just Can’t Wait to Be King was very different than the original soundtrack. However, as it was clearly stated in Mylène’s interview with the fireworks designer, Alain Carbonneau, the tasks have been fragmented between the Royal 22nd Regiment, which crafted the soundtrack on its side, and Apogée, which was ordered to tailor a pyro extravangaza on this theme. I am sure that the soundtrack wouldn’t have been edited in the same way whether a senior pyromusical designer as Carbonneau was involved in the process. The segment on the music of The Legend of Zelda, for instance, could have been shorten.

A set of angled candles shooting blue stars prematurely came into life about 30 seconds before the end of the authoritative countdown imperturbably pronounced by Michel Lacroix, and the sequence of Ferris Wheel lights which were turned off. Then, the show properly began as the fireworks powerfully awakened on the music of Star Wars, whose success at the box office over the last year is indisputable. That was a climactic beginning. The music for the finale (Pirates of the Caribbean) was also a great choice, with an accumulation of gold comets, shells of yellow stars, and flights of salutes.

The pyromusical design and technical design were good and creative. The lake was the stage for nautical flares, rotative fountains, and shells, as well as candles shooting stars over the water from the third ramp. The Harry Potter segment was very nice, with swinging sticks and brooms (similar to the sticks, with a small fountain effect at the lower end), as well as a short but beautiful sequence of 5 or 6 sets made of nautical mines, erupting from the left to the right side of the lake. I am not familiar with Mario Bros but I suspected that some shapes alluded to the famous video game as I saw smiles on the face of people around me. That is confirmed by above Ryguy2008’s post. Nonetheless, the design could have been a bit more sophisticated and polished. Several devices overlapped the following segments, like the water falls which lit up during The Legend of Zelda, the candles of bombettes which began during the Symphonic Marches, and some flares which started for the Superman March.

My attention has been catched, during the penultimate segment (or the previous one), by rare whistling comets which decelerated close to a complete stop, then gained some traction and rose again (similarly to double-ascension girandolas). Other than that, we saw a good range of effects, but not as wide as in many other shows. The choice of colours was purposeful in some segments (red and blue effects on the music of Superman, more colours during the Lion King theme), but not as diverse as in many displays. The synchronization was good and note-synchronized on some segments (e.g., the percussion from Rocky), but more “atmospheric” in most parts.

The audience briefly applauded and didn’t stand after the show, so I am not sure that people were so enthusiastic about the performance. Generally speaking, I would say that it was a very good debut display from Apogée, which didn’t have an easy task given the pre-made soundtrack and, also, the lack of human resources around the Canada Day. For many years, I was told that the competition schedule must take into consideration the national celebrations (e.g., American and French teams are not available around July 4th and July 14th). So it was certainly not a convenient timing for BEM and Apogée who did these shows in 2015 and 2016.



Early, we saw the standard protocol for an opening display. Master of ceremony, Michel Lacroix, welcomed the audience, introduced the event, the sponsors (including the newest one, Tim Hortons) and the line-up of contestants. Sophie Émond, director of La Ronde operations and security, who presumably stood in for general manager Phil Liggett, did a very short speech. She was followed by the competition director, Martyne Gagnon, who read the same speech than one year ago, with only slight revisions and updates*. In opposition to 2015, there was neither reference to the Canadian Armed Forces, nor speech from its representative. Michel Lacroix finally introduced the theme of the show and the 9 Apogée team members.

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Metal detectors become standard in the mass entertainment industry these days and La Ronde doesn’t escape to this trend. People who attend fireworks displays on site should plan extra time to enter into the park. The process was somewhat chaotic when I arrived last night.



First of all, whereas multiple pathways used to lead to the main entrance, there are all blocked but the one at the far left of the entrance plaza. An employee then dispatch people between various queue lines which lead to a series of metal detector stations. Arriving at 7pm, I waited about 15 minutes and three metal detector stations were dedicated to our line. The line wasn’t long, so I can’t imagine how long the wait can be when all the queue space is filled during peak times. Once your bags have been checked and you have walked through the detector, you then proceed to the turnstiles with your ticket or season pass. Employees were very polite, but the whole process is a severe change from the former “free style” procedure.

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All that being said, it was a very good show and a pleasant night. Now, let’s the competition begins with the Chilean (or Spanish?) entrant.

Fred

*That is a very effective process, sometimes used by the author of this post, as readers can see by comparing this opening review with the one I posted one year ago!

Hi everyone,

Since the regular coverage was not available this time due to another now-famous display being presented at the same time 100 km away, I decided to get out of my self-imposed multi-year hibernation and produce a good-old-times French-based longform report : 2 juillet 2016 - Feu d'ouverture.

However, I was almost prevented from reporting on the show with my regular photographic equipment if it was not for the timely (and fortuitous) intervention of Martyne Gagnon's assistant, who was able to cut through the red tape and fortunately allow me to enter the park in time. Thanks a lot to her, Martyne and Paul !

Apogée presented a very good opening display with surprising effects (color changing Niagara Falls, rising-tail equipped falling leaves shells, pattern shells and quality nauticals). It's not quite enough to displace WECO's 2014 opening extravaganza in my heart as the best opening shows I've seen so far, but it was still an enjoyable night.

My new motto : Faites des photos, pas la guerre.

STL

For those who could not attend the opening display, famous Bob's video are back! Follow the link for the opening show:

http://www.burchcom.com/2016/
http://www.burchcom.com/2016/161opening.mp4

Fred

Unseasonably cool weather conditions presented themselves for the opening display of 2016, much like they did for the beginning of the 2015 edition. However, in this year’s situation, the entire day was uncomfortably chilly, with persistently cloudy conditions and brisk westerly/WSW winds. Evening temperatures of 17-18 C were observed during display time (under partly cloudy skies), and westerly to WSW winds meant that smoke was persistently blowing towards the La Ronde audience directly. Luckily, humidity was low, so the smoke was not building too extensively, but it still caused the display to appear murky most of the time for those viewing from La Ronde. In last year’s case, for the opening display (on Canada Day), conditions only became much cooler until near and after sunset, following warmer but still unseasonably cool temperatures earlier in the day, along with the risk for thunderstorms.

I do not normally write reviews for off-competition displays, but I thought that it would be interesting to say a few words about this opening performance since I did feel some connection to it. Overall, I thought the display was also, as members previously mentioned, an enjoyable one. The pyrotechnic content was fairly diverse, and we were introduced to a fair variety of effects to represent most soundtrack. Even though this was an out-of-competition display, I thought that the overall design of the display was mostly straight-forward and went well with the musical selections. The theme of the show, “Our Heroes”, at first, seemed a little vague, so I was initially uncertain as to what to really expect (as is the case with virtually all displays, anyway). However, the information that Paul kindly shared with us from his interview certainly did help to fill in some gaps as to the general foundation of the display. The theme, itself, was well represented by the songs used, but the representation was quite creative because of the various ways used to depict it (it extended beyond more than just a “tribute” approach). I also found that the display had several points where transitions in pace were nicely delivered, including within songs. One notable example was how the soundtrack from “Rocky” segued into the following segment. At times, the transitions really brought out an emotional feel to the display.

My personal favorite segments of the display were those of “Indiana Jones” and “Rocky”. I found most of the elements that made up those particular soundtracks to be very well reinforced by the pyrotechnics. The introduction of Indiana Jones, for example, began with barrages of large nautical shells, followed by brilliant flares! Synchronization was, in my humble opinion, most exemplary here, and the crescendo was well established. The arrangement of objects (resembling seesaws) that appeared along low-level during the “Harry Potter” segment was also very intriguing when they lit for a short time, and the manner in which they drooped. It was also a pleasant surprise to hear soundtrack from “The Lion King”, and that was very enjoyable to watch, too! The color distribution in that segment was mostly appropriate, and synchronization, I thought, was good.

Prior to the display, I later discovered that soundtrack from some of the most popular video game franchises would be represented in this display. I was quite thrilled to learn this, for I am a big fan of “The Legend of Zelda” and “Mario Bros.” – adventure-oriented games, really. Growing up with these franchises, in particular, really built the anticipation for this display for me, even though only two segments of the show were actually devoted to them! During the show, though, I was actually amazed as to how much time was actually allocated to “The Legend of Zelda”, comprising of three separate soundtracks! I believe that the last two theme songs used came from the 1991 release, “The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past”, with the second song used for the Dark World in the game, while the final song used can be heard upon successfully completing the game. I was, however, a little disappointed by the lack of representation of these particular songs, and there were odd moments of darkness. For those who have played the game, Link (the protagonist) goes on to battle a mysterious wizard, named Agahnim (who is disguised as Ganon – the antagonist). Once confronting and defeating him, Agahnim draws Link into what is known as the Dark World (which was transformed by Ganon into a world of monsters from the original sacred Golden Land). It is from this point that the second song used in the display is heard in the game. As a result, I was actually hoping to gain more a sense of dread and bewilderment from this part of the display as I did at that point in the game. Not only that, but I felt that there could have been more effects used to exemplify these segments to bring out the sudden changes in the environmental surroundings that typically make themselves known to you. The Mario Bros. segment later in the display, by comparison, was well executed. As much as I love the Zelda franchise, however, as Fred noted above, I also thought that a little too much time was devoted to it.

The finale was good, but it needed more in the way of color and needed to endure over a longer period of time!

All in all, this was an enjoyable display for the opening! Even though there were points where I felt that the display could have been much better, the soundtrack from popular video games and movies that I truly did grow up with took me down memory lane and retrieve many fond memories from the good old 1990s! In that respect, it was, in some ways, an emotional journey for me as I watched the display!

Trav.