Everyone is becoming excited with the forthcoming Luso's show, but the competition will continue after this! Howard & Sons' team has posted an article on PyroPlanet. We learn that 30 nautical pontoons will be use during the Australian display. I believe that Groupe F (France, 2005) was the team using most of these floating platforms (about 20).

http://www.pyroplanet.com/article486.html

Fred

Wow! That's a lot of positions!! Looks like the competitions is just really starting with Luso! Somewhere in another forums i saw pyrotechnico post something about their show so here's a quote by rocco vitale from pyrouniverse forums!

"It has been around 9 months in planning and I am ready to see the final result. We have the script complete and it is going to be a wild one. We are looking at around 160 positions of pyro."

if howards and sons have 180 positions.... pyrotechnico has 160....
The teams are definitely presenting big shows this year!!

Some month ago Pyrotechnico left us an special web page about the show in Montreal...

Does anybody remember the name of the sit or has the link? Thanks.

http://rockloves.com

As for the number of "firing positions" - I wonder what they mean? Firing modules? There have been shows in Montreal with over 450 FM-16 Pyrodigital firing modules. Does that mean such a show had 450 "firing positions"? Typically ramp 3 will have 9, 11 or 13 groupings; ramp 2 more often than not has 3 5 or 7 and ramp 1 is effectively 5 positions. If you count the usual 7 on ramp 5 and 1 on ramp 4, that means, really, there's usually no more than 33. I did see a setup on ramp 3 once which appeared to have 49 or 51 groupings - but that was pretty extreme! So I'm really mystified by what is meant in this case.


Paul.

rockloves.com is the name of the site! Yeah.. 180 and 160 positions looks like a bit too much for positions and too little for firing modules.. I have no idea what they mean but i just know that you are right that "positions" means the groupings of fireworks maybe australia will have 30 in the water, 30 in ramp 3, 30 in ramp 2 and 30 in ramp 1???....... thats crazy ahahaha!!..


vander

I think that I have the answer to this question. I know Rocco and the group at Pyrotecnico and this is what he said. Without giving all of the tricks, there is going to be 7 trussing structures on their show. 2 of the structures has 21 postions of pyro (21 modules) each and the other has 29 positions (29 modules.) The remaining 3 structures has 20 postions on each equaling 60 positions. That is a total 131 firing positions just in the trussing. Their show is going to be over 400 PD mods. Hope it helped.

Wow! Typically, many of the Australian displays in this competition are personal favorites for me, and my expectations were already high for this coming performance well before hand. Now, after the extensive news of it being a relatively large display, I'm in even more anticipation for it, especially seeing that my birthday (the 21st) is a mere two days away from this show. I suppose that I will, as always, treat it as an early b-day present! Not only that, but, really, it would be a great pleasure to have two large shows back to back.

Cheers,

Trav.

I wish all of you prepare yourselves for the "big shows" incase they are really big!! I wonder what Canada, China, and Austria will do!!... still no news from those 3 ahaha!

vander

Hrm, I was at La Ronde today. I took some time to check out the setup, and I was very surprised to see that they haven't installed anything on the ramps yet, close to the lake.

In fact, the special structure that was used for Portugal's display is still there!

Is this something normal? I didn't check the other ramp(s) on the other side of the road (close to the river), so I'm not sure if they maybe started working on that one first. It's interesting that they only have three days to set up everything, like as if there were two displays in one week.

Also, is Australia's show supposed to be "big" and complex, like Portugal's? They say that they've worked on it for three years, although I wasn't too impressive with the display I saw in 2005. But it's going to be interesting to see this!

Enkil- the display is on Saturday night at 10pm not Thursday. The Le Ronde management and crew work schedules determined what ramps are worked on, on what days. All teams have to work within those schedules.

Enkil,

You just got an answer from Stuart Bensley, Howard & Sons' designer! It looks that the Australian team carefully monitors this forum!

My expectations for the Australian performance are moderate. Reading my notes about the display H&S did in 2005, I remember that it wasn't a bad performance at all, rather a good show, but with some obvious weaknesses, especially the irrelevant narrative. However, that was a first appearance in Montreal and we have good reason to believe that the next show should be better.

Usually, each team has five days to prepare the display, including the day of the show. The first two days are worked inside workshops and the three remaining days are devoted to setup the arsenal, that is, Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the Australian show. Then, the Canadian team will begin to work on its show Saturday and Sunday, and the setup will occur Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And so on...

Fred

I'm very much looking forward to this display. From what I recall in the 2005 performance - it was an alright show (despite the bothersome narration), but just lacked the intensity for most of the time when trying to deliver the more hyped transitions successfully. I am confident that this time around, Howard & Sons will deliver a much more powerful and even more innovative show for us on Saturday!

Stuart Bensley - I wish you the best of luck! Although there is threatening weather later today and especially throughout tomorrow, I sincerely hope that it'll not interfere too much in the way of finishing the setup on time.

Trav.

I'm also looking forward, i think they might beat portugal, because i've seen their displays in australia on new years and during the sydney olympics. i hope the best luck in the display to the autralians.

btw, smoke. why not put some videos of the fireworks on our youtube account. im sure u remember the password.

Pat

Actually, the New Year's Eve displays in Sydney have been put on by Fotis International Fireworks for the past several years, not Howard and Sons. By some coincidence, Fotis are competing in the Montmorency Falls competition just outside of Quebec city this coming Saturday 19th - so it's quite the Ozzie invasion this weekend!

As for Enkil's comments about the setup, ramp 3 is often not set up until the day before or even the day of the display since the most water sensitive material is there - no point in leaving it out to potentially get wet if there's any rain. Ramp 1 (adjacent to the river) where all the 6", 8", 10" and 12" shells are located is usually the first to be set up.

Paul

Here is the soundtrack for the display this Saturday:

Sparkling Diamonds
Nicole Kidman from Moulin Rouge

Light My Fire
Chris Goodey, Kennedy, Peter Scholes

Helter Skelter
Dana Fuchs

Talk
Coldplay remixed by Junkie XL

Down Under Unplugged
Colin Hay

Nothing Else Matters
Metallica & The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra

Adagio For Strings
composed by Barber, remixed by William Orbit

Proper Education
Eric Prydz v Pink Floyd

Peter Allen Medley feat 'I Still Call Australia Home’ & 'Tenterfield Saddler’
Tommy Emmanuel

Whole Lotta Love
Led Zepplin remixed by Brendan Tracey

Under The Milky Way
The Church, George & The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Don’t Dream Its Over
Crowded House & Sarah Blasko remixed by Grant Stevens

One
Mary J Bilge & U2