Hi everyone,

Please post your reviews and/or comments for the Mexican display here!

Cheers,

Trav.

Due to professional duties and time constraints, I will post my review of this excellent show later than usual.

Fred

Here are some of my notes about Mexico.

I liked :
- Colorful first half of the show.
- Use of synchronized small flames on ramp 3 was different from what we usually see.
- Soundtrack was well edited.
- Fireworks followed emotions of the songs throughout the show. Very well thought and designed.
- Spinning wheels in sequence at the end. Awesome !
- Repetitions were mostly perceptible during a song. Not through the entire show.
- Quality, originality and very smart use of cake slices was a signature of this show.
- Originality of the bigger shells. Some of the color changing ones in the beginning were very nice. Several of them included strobing effects.
- Quantity over size : sometimes couple of 6-8in shells can create a better impact than a single 12in.

I noticed :
- Position on the left on ramp 3 was problematic from the beginning. At 22h53 there were still fireworks shooting from that position !
- Several shells exploded very low in the sky.
- Structures representing "Dia de los Muertos" ended up being two big lights. Idea was probably to put a lot of details in them but it failed to work properly.
- Shells were sometime only on the left or right. It wasn't clear if that was on purpose or not and created emptiness and confusion.
- Single-shots with tails were used very often during the show, most of the time using a similar unsynchronized "V" shape pattern. Efficient to fill lower space, but pattern/angle/speed variation would have helped avoid repetition.
- Heart shape made of comets on ramp 3 : pattern was not clear and there were almost no reaction in the audience.
- First part of the finale was kind of a repetition of another segment earlier in the show with more or less the same shells.
- Finale song was too long. I understand the buildup purpose, but shorter would have meant less repetition.

Personal thoughts
Mexico team designed a show that was a lot of fun. From the soundtrack to the colors and effects, the way everything was put together with such a small number of cues is a great achievement. It wasn't perfect. But it was good enough to give us a great 30 minutes full of emotions. I think a podium is possible for Mexico at this point. And if it happened, it would be well deserved.

After 4 shows :
1) Italy
2) Mexico
3) Japan
4) Austria

Dan

This second appearance of Lux Pirotecnia into the Montreal competition was much better than its debut show and it turned out to be an excellent display, probably the one I have found the most joyful and entertaining so far. However, it also had some confusing moments and a couple of weaknesses (including a finale that was not as climactic as I might have hoped).

Before the show began, our attention was drawn to three vertical structures of lances (the central one with a shape of crescent moon, the other two appearing as two similar portraits). They were not as large as the one erected on the roof of the technical room (4th ramp) in 2007, but they were located on the fifh ramp, in the centre of the lake, so closer to the audience. Then, as I arrived in the bleachers around 9pm, laser beams were seemingly being tested, and I had the unpleasant experience to get one (directly or through reflection over the lake) in my face. Newly active forum member ArtiDan and his partner came to discuss with me about that and the overall issue of the new laser segments. Finally, following the standard welcome message pre-recorded by Michel Lacroix, we were obviously expecting the introduction of the Mexican team. It happened a couple of minutes later than usual, after Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire had been played two more times, leading Paul Marriott to come see me, wondering anxiously what was happening.

Fortunately, the show started promptly at 10pm in a theatrical way. The opening segment, which lasted over 6 minutes and a half, encapsulated many of the features which made me appreciating of the pyromusical design of Lux Pirotecnia. On a festive Mexican music, it started quietly with various patterns of gerbs, followed by flame effects along the 3rd ramp synchronized on the percussion. Then low-level horsetails were followed by higher shells with overlapping patterns of various effects below. We came back to a serene moment with nautical fountains, followed by color-changing mines, then shells of twinking stars turning from blue, to white, to red. The segment came to a climactic loud ending with successive volleys of whistlers. While massive opening sequences may be spectacular, I also appreciate such progressive tableaux with rhythmic variations.

This joyful opening was followed by a more dramatic segment with the music of the Hijo de la Luna story, which is described on this Wikipedia page. That article helps to make sense to the moon crescent made of lances which appeared on the central set piece, with other nautical fountains in the backdrop, as well as the actual moon crescent visible to the left of the onsite audience! However, I was very confused at that moment because it was also the first laser part of the show. We were told that pyrotechnic devices of any sort are not allowed during these periods, but I wondered whether the rule was changed due to widespread dissatisfaction, which would have been good news for the viewers (it was better!) but unfair to the participants. (It appears the rule has not changed. I don’t know if Lux Pirotecnia will incur some sort of penalty or not.) After two minutes of this confusion, the laser beams ended, then the two remaining set pieces of lances came into life with extremely bright, elaborated, and apparently similar portraits related to the story.

During the third and more festive segment, La Fiesta del Mariachi, we briefly saw a sequence of vertically shot stars creating the shape of a heart. Following the second laser intermission on the Ode of Joy, the festive theme continued with “international” musics and the following parts appeared to be more organized around specific fireworks effects : crossettes on Another Day of Sun, sequences of wheels and more flame effects on Fiesta Pagana and some multibreak shells during the finale on Salvation for a Proud Nation.

Thus I felt some limitations with the technical design of the show. Indeed, somewhere between the 20th and the 25th minutes of the extravaganza, it appeared more repetitive to me. Furthermore, some technical weaknesses became more obvious. A brief time of darkness had occured during the opening segment and some wheels had been reluctant to run on Fiesta Pagana, but these problems were minor and didn’t detract from the show. However, about 1 minute and 40 seconds after the start of the final segment, as the pace of the music gained in intensity, the show was totally dark for a few seconds. Even after, the fireworks didn’t gain in intensity as much as the music commanded. Fortunately, multibreak shells and barrages of cakes of comets and whistlers contributed to a faux finale (we had passed the 30 minutes at that point!), then a more intense but very short finale occured and ended with salutes. Nevertheless, the finale as a whole turned out to be somewhat anti-climactic. Remaining fireworks erupted for several minutes after the show and when I left La Ronde, shortly before midnight, mortars on the 2nd ramp were still smoky.

In various interviews before the show, the main designer of Lux Pirotecnia looked very proud to present a show entirely composed of Mexican products, made to order by several suppliers. That was also a bold choice. Generally speaking, Lux Pirotecnia brought good material, including many colour-changing and multibreak pieces, but some shells produced somewhat irregular shapes. Furthermore, to add some larger shells from other suppliers and to fire them at the right time would have been a good thing : the musics sometimes sounded grandiose but the size of the shells didn’t really fit.

The soundtrack was original and more cohesive than I expected. Indeed, the “international musics” didn’t contrast too much with the Mexican ones, as the feast theme was really the glue. I like to highlight the original version of the Ode of Joy. I would have loved to see fireworks on that festive music but it was used for the second laser segment.

Generally speaking, the synchronization was excellent throughout the show.

Overall, I was extremely pleased with the Mexican entrant. The pyromusical design, which is the most important criterion (30%), was the best so far in my opinion despite some minor weaknesses. The technical design was probably equal with La Rosa : Lux optimized the possibilities of the firing site to a greater extent (4th ramp, lances) than all previous competitors, but La Rosa ignited more powerful pieces from the 5th ramp; both teams have experienced some darkness, but the lack of density was more obvious in the Mexican show than the Italian one, while not as problematic as with the Japanese presentation. The pyrotechnic material was better in the Italian show in comparison with Mexico.The soundtrack was slightly more elaborated with LaRosa due to the medleys, but the Mexican one was bolder than the Japanese and Austrian ones.

My personal ranking so far :

1. La Rosa S.R.L. (Italy)
2. Lux Pirotecnia (Mexico)
3. SteyrFire Fireworks (Austria)
4. Omagari Hanabi (Japan)

(In this ranking, I assume that there is no penalty for the pytotechnics during the first laser segment.)

Fred

My report on the Lux Pirotecnia display. Like Fred, they're in my 2nd place for now!

http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=2353

Paul.

Light SSW winds (9-12 km/h), along with a temperature of 26 C during display time combined with high humidity (Humidex of 33 C) were in place for this display. This allowed for the rapidly accumulating smoke to drift slowly clear to the right of the La Ronde audience (except higher-altitude smoke moving closely to the right of right-hand sections of the audience).

This was quite an enjoyable display, though somehow enigmatic under different regards. The choreography was fairly good overall, and there were a few moments when it became quite complex to highlight certain soundtrack. In particular, I enjoyed the third-to-last segment (C’est la Vie) with its sequencing which, consequently, offered a more holistic approach to musical representation. This particular piece further allowed for probably the most elaborate transition to occur in this display, with girandolas to introduce the next piece, for example. The display also had a very traditional feel, using several Mexican tracks, and with the knowledge that all products used in this performance were 100% Mexican. To that end, I found this to be very impressive, in that a good diversity of products was used.

The show had some very good moments, too, from a plethora of high-level energies to moments of significant serenity. As such, the display was quite true to its theme, showcasing the extensive variability in rhythm and pace that we would typically expect in a conceptual design such as this one. The flow of this pyromusical was, indeed, quite obvious and traced well the ebbs and flows that are characteristic with this type of thematic framework.

That said, there were several portions of this show that I did not find so clear. Notably, while the display relied on an articulation of emotions, the transitions were not always so clean because of the fairly lengthy endurance of many songs – this is further evidenced by the limited number of soundtrack used in this display. I think a more effective approach to such a theme, thus, would be to use shorter-length soundtrack, or at least employ a more careful soundtrack editing procedure to some of the existing selections. In other situations, I would have liked to see more from certain soundtrack, such as during that soundtrack prior to the first laser piece (La Fiesta del Mariachi). I think this approach would have truly elicited a truer “feast” of emotions than what we saw. This was a criticism that I similarly outlined for the Japanese display, although it was more extensive there than in this situation. The theme itself might have also worked better with more of a story behind it (with limited narration), rather the somewhat more rudimentary approach shown.

More significant points would be that the musical representation was not always so clear in terms of the effects and pyrotechnical depth used to portray them. In light of this, the quieter segments were sometimes too quiet and were less explorative than I had previously hoped. At times, more low-level sequences could have better defined signature components of the involved soundtrack - for example, again, segments like “La Fiesta del Mariachi” & “C’est la Vie” were comparatively masterpieces for bringing soundtrack to life and possessed a great extent of depth, color richness and a careful attention to detail. Seeing segments such as these appear so delightfully left me with a sense of emptiness during other segments, knowing that more could have been done to really showcase the musical elements characteristic of what were realistically elaborate songs. About 4 minutes into the show, too, there were fairly extensive periods of darkness (possibly technical problems at the time) while the music was in force. Conversely, fireworks would continue briefly after the termination of some segments, reducing the quality and effectiveness of the transitions during those moments. In other cases, the choice of effects was sometimes, to me, out of place – notably, I did not understand the relevance of the brightly-lit skulls.

I also found the display to be limited in its color palette – probably the most reserved color selection so far this year. Given the nature of theme, I would have expected a much more playfully-colorful display to elaborate on the changes in emotions. As a result, I felt like this impacted both the conceptual and technical designs to a degree. With regards to the finale, it was enjoyable, but as others outlined, it carried with it a strong anti-climactic feeling because of the very short but intense real finale. It might have, then, been best to combine this final barrage with the faux finale.

Overall, a very good performance by the Mexican team, and despite my negative points, I found many aspects of the display to be quite engaging and rhythmic between the fireworks and music.

Trav.