HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU THINK WILL ATTTEND SATURDAYS EVENT!?! IS IT WORTH ME GOIN THERE TO TRY AND SELL GLOW BALLS FOR KIDS

Anonymous,

It's a little hard to say at this point how many people will be there for the first display as we don't know the weather conditions for June 18th as of yet, if you're talking about that Saturday, that is.

Now, if we assume that it will be nice, I would estimate that there will be a lot of people given the fact that it's the fist show. In total, if the weather is nice, I'd make an approximate guess of 400,000-500,000. More towards the 500,000 level, though.

As for the glow balls, where do you typically sell them? Your best bet is on De Lorimier and Notre-Dame.

Regards,

Trav.

Dear Smoke (Trav),

Do not take your dream for reality! It would be outstanding that 400,000-500,000 persons attend to the show! I rather believe that an attendance of 100,000-150,000 persons would be an excellent score.

Fred

Frederick,

It's no dream. I think that the combined total on the Jacques-Cartier bridge and at La Ronde is already well over 100,000 people. However, in other areas around Montreal, there's a huge number of spectators, especially on De Lorimier and Notre-Dame. Then there's the Old Port and other adjacent and surrounding places that have people watching. They're also people who come from other provinces and states to see it. So, I think 400,000-500,000 people is possible and reasonable. Once again, assuming the weather is warm.

If you're still pessimistic, check out this link:

http://www.montreal-fireworks.com/setup.html

Go under the heading "Spectators and other information" at the bottom. Also, check the corresponding statistics.

I have also done some research on other sites and their figures also indicate that 2.3 million people attend each year. So, if you do the math, on average, you'd have 250,000 to 350,000 people each show. Perhaps every night would vary in numbers but that figure would be a safe ball park on average, regardless. But, once we have good weather cooperation, you'd have an excess of between 400,000-500,000 people, or more, I'm sure. You'd be surprised on how many people take advantage when we've got excellent weather conditions, like on July 21st last year (my birthday) when France played.

Also, according to my research, in the first seasons of the competition, there has been more than double than what we have now. I believe there were more than 5.7 million people who attended in the beginning years for the entire season compared to the 2.3 million we have now. Actually, that's almost tripled.

Regards,

Trav

Trav,

I hope that you - and your sources - are right. As a fanatic of this event, it is in my interest that as many people as possible attend to it. I see that your point is based on different sources and you look well-informed about that.

Nonetheless, I suspect that this kind of figures are often over-estimations of attendance to popular events. Keep in mind that 500,000 people is equal to 1/6 of the population living in the Montreal area...

Fred

Fred,

Well, I'm not saying that it's always close to 500,000 people. Like I said, on average, we can expect anywhere between 250,000-350,000 people each show. But I'm more than certain that, at times, it can get between the 400,000-500,000 range, especially taking different aspects into consideration.

Now, like you and all of us here, we are huge fanatics of the competition and it would be great to have high figures, but if you think about it and consider popular spots around the area, it comes out to lots of people.

The sources that I went through gave similar figures to that of this site, so it's clear that there are lots of people in surrounding areas. If you come on Notre-Dame and De Lorimier, there alone has tons of people. Other adjacent streets have tons of people, too. I know that because I've been going on Notre-Dame and De Lorimier for 14-15 years.

I know it easy to think that 500,000 is a big over-estimation and yes, it is approximately 1/6 of the population of Montreal, but it's an idea of what potential nights can be like, but not all the time. To be honest, my uncle said the same thing as you did, but I don't blame him. If I had to give a safe figure per display, assuming the weather is nice, I would say anywhere between 250,000-400,000, or 350,000.

Regards,

Trav.