First of all: Congratulations to dragon fireworks. From my point of view it was the best display of this season and it deserved the best place. Im super proud of Vander

I was quite optimistic about the gold. The season in general was medium-high level in terms of pyromusical design, I am sure it would have been much higher with Australia in it, but the thing is that two of the shows were superb, and considering the weather problems to me the gold was clear. So no surprises.
Second: to me the position of the american display is quite unfair. The decision shows a lack of knowledge of fireworks design and technique. I know it is not very nice to criticize the jury decision since it is suposed to be democratic and well-funded, but I feel I have to give also my point of view about it. I have the feeling the weather has more to do with the third place than the fireworks themself. It is also possible that the soundtrack of the austrian show was more appealing to the jury, as it was the theme, but i dont think both shows can be compared in terms of fireworks design. The austrian show was a good one (nice theme devolopment, recognisable music, some interesting effects and an effective finale) but in the same weather conditions the USA show would have been much more apprecited by the jury than the austrian one.
Then... Should we blame the weather or should we blame the jury?
Moreover I would like to point that the design of the austrian show had many similarities with other shows from other companies, from my point of view something more than only “inspiration”. If the jury would have been people involved into the fireworks world they wouldnt have missed this at all in the chapter of pyromusical design.
Actually is not the first time “weird” things happen with the winners of this competition, I still cant get over the decision of making Canada winner over Sweeden, France or Spain in 2005, the first year I attended the competition. A delirium.