Please post your reviews/commentaries of the British display here.

Trav.

WOW. I very much enjoyed that show. My wife described it as having "more fake climaxes than porn star", and I'm inclined to agree with her. Frankly, I lost track of the synchronization about half way through the show, so I can't comment on that, but I felt that the energy of the show was among some of the best I've seen in the last few years.

It's such a pity that not many people knew about the show, given the small number of people on Rue Notre-Dame. I hope that it was well attended in the grandstands!

I'm really excited for what's to come in the weeks ahead.

Duncan, you would be surprised to see how a small number of people watched the display from inside the park. The grandstands were quite plenty, the terrace near the Subway, fairly occupied. The usual crowd that gather up near the arcade's was nowhere to be found. Earlier rain gave people the idea the weather was to remain like that all night.

This display was well done! I gave a big applause to Merlin after filming the entire display. They weren't very lucky with the slow winds heading towards the south-east (might be east, it was heading in the direction of Ednor). The silver seats must've had their eye's water with the smoke and debris heading towards that part of the park. Merlin was more lucky than FireworX by Ian Riedel in terms of smoke and humidity.

The beginning of the display started off strong. Large calibre shells unfolded right at the very last second of the countdown. Very nice quality product, and focused a lot on the love theme with coloured shells of pink, red and white. The use of one shots was exquisite. Some very minor faults like the white strobe pots and a candle that was fired too early caught my eye. The grouping, spacing and wide presentation of their shells were well placed. The synchronization was a bit off where the shells would explode at the downbeat and the effect would expand at the offbeat, which could be a bit of a disappointment to few judges. All 4 ramps that were used by Merlin were properly used. The 305mm shells covered the sky in stars. Merlin fired barrages of shells on various segments that had some good power to them and filled the sky. The choice of music was very intriguing with some Adele, LMFAO, Muse, Marvin Gaye to name a few. The finale seemed to have ended off in a rush, some songs were cut very precisely and some people around me noticed it. It was a very short finale and didn't really make it a big show ender to me. I may sound picky, but they could have improved a bit on that part. The nautical shells are what made the finale really dazzling, and the amount of angled comets and mines on Ramps 3 & 4 flowed well with the shells behind.

All this said, it was a much more enjoyable display than Australia, but I don't see Merlin winning a Jupiter this year. I predict either Spain, Italy & Canada will be winning Jupiters, but I admit, it is too early to tell. If anyone would like to see the full display, you can look at the link I posted below. Bob's video might be a bit higher quality (I can't be too sure on his camera specs) however. Just bear in mind, there was a kid that was trying to ruin the beginning of my video, and because of severe allergies earlier, I kept coughing which caused a jolt while holding my phone. I still congratulate Merlin on a fantastic entry, and a safe trip home!

More terrible weather on it's way this week, thundershowers and rain for the next few days. Hope everyone on the forum is well and healthy! Have a great weekend.

Merlin's display: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fo6iwAIW8E&

Pat

I have posted the video of the England show here: http://www.burchcom.com/2013/england.html

For those who want to download your own copy, right click on this link and select "save target as" ... http://www.burchcom.com/2013/2013england.mp4

The file size is 1 GB

Bob

They weren't very lucky with the slow winds heading towards the south-east (might be east, it was heading in the direction of Ednor).

Pat, the smoke was heading slowly towards the NE and NNE.

Trav.

Pat, the smoke was heading slowly towards the NE and NNE.

It looked more like south-east from my perspective. You might be right, seeing as how I was on the left of the grandstands.

Pat

Very good display for a first time participant! This was a well designed show with interesting segments. I really liked the last two segments and other parts. Synchronization was good, but I have mix feelings for the song selection (not a big fan of pop music). Overall, a very enjoyable display! Finale was very good, too, but should've lasted longer!

There were fewer people at La Ronde than last week. Weather... just terrible!

My rankings so far:

1. England
2. Australia

First of all, I tip my hat to Merlin Fireworks team, as well as the local crew, who had to work in very difficult weather conditions, especially to complete the setup Friday, as rain, wind and cold temperature have unfortunately kept the crowd away from the park. It's a shame that no more people attended the performance of Merlin's debute display, especially since the weather was actually great at show time. The display has suffered of minor technical problems - it seemed that one support was tilted in the wrong direction, thus impacting several angled sequences on ramp 3; some spinning wheels didn't light up - but I had been afraid to experience much more serious troubles with all the rain flooding parts of the firing area.

The pyrotechnic design was more complex than what we had seen the previous week (but there is room for more!). As Pat wrote, the opening was dramatic, with large shells and sequences of chasing bright effects below. In the same way, on the music of "Someone like you", the segment quietly began with nautical flares, cakes of stars, and falling leaves, then increasing in pace with angled mines and a first sequence of horizontal mines launched toward the audience, in a way which reminded me Surex's piano effect (Poland, 2010). The most climactic segment, in my opinion, was on the music of "Escape" and would have made a great finale, with an accumulation of glittering comets filling the sky. Also, right after "It must be love", twinkling stars nicely evoked confetti as bells announced a wedding ceremony.

We also enjoyed a good range of pyrotechnic effects (though more nautical products would have been a good idea) and great richness of colours. I noted several shades of blue­, as well as rare shells of three-colour mushrooms. Synchronization was generally very good to excellent. Several sequences were especially wide; it appeared that ramp 2 has been slightly extended with additional floating platforms.

However, I think the show suffered of two problems, maybe augmented by another one related to the sound system. First, some particular sequences were very repetitive. Following "Someone like you", other products were horizontally launched over the lake twice. Chasing angled patterns of comets and mines, along the third ramp, occured in most segments of the display, which was really too much. Second, I am not sure the soundtrack was appealing for a mass audience, and that it helped to connect with the storyline of the show. Some musics, like Yeah Yeah and Inhaler, weren't mass friendly at all. Moreover, I felt my ears assaulted by them (and many other songs), and that may be due to some problems with the sound system. An hypothesis is that it was not adjusted to the low crowd in the grandstands, but I wonder why it could not be fixed during the display.

My ranking so far:

1. England
2. Australia

Fred

P.S.: For the record, the usual setup was back on the floating stage, with small boards on each extremity of the largest one, and flags are back to each side of the stage!

That was a decent first show by Merlin! Their designer probably felt so bad watching the 2 positions of their 9 position fan have the opposite angle the entire show. The effect that those single shots could have formed could have made the show much better. Other than that they had other single shot sequences i quite enjoyed like the ones in Yann Tiersen's song. Unfortunately, some mines seemed forced in some of the songs and this resulted to the single shots not appearing to be hitting any beats from the song. The effects did not always match the songs such as in the finding beauty song where they used crackling shells for a soft music. This said, there were a lot of nice Zaragozana products throughout the show specially the pink strobes. They probably love strobe effects since they were all over the show. Their theme was not really obvious, even less so with the soundtrack that they used. All in all this was much better than last week's show and I hope that the shows only get better from now on.

Best Regards,
Vander

An excellent debut by the British team - my report is here: http://montreal-fireworks.com/ReportBlog/?p=724

Paul.

For the second time, terrible weather conditions occurred for a fireworks day, with heavy rains and strong NE/NNE winds. However, in spite of the unseasonably cool temperatures, conditions improved in time for the late-afternoon to evening period, with light winds, a few clusters of low cloud.

This was a very enjoyable display devised by the British debutant. I loved the relatively large diversity of effects shown throughout much of the display, as well as the fabulous sequences sometimes shown at low- to mid-levels. Synchronization was particularly good, but it was also often enhanced in a creative manner (as compared to Australia) through the use of various effects, which was particularly effective with the shells, mines, (red) flares and strobe lights – at many points, the shells, most notably, exploded on cue with key notes. The firing angles at low-level were equally as interesting, especially with respect to some of those relative to the lake. The show also offered a very energetic and, to some extent, enigmatic start, prompting the (small) audience to show their approval. Though the overall soundtrack selection was not a personal favorite, I enjoyed the segment “Paradise”, as I thought that this track produced the most emotionally-enticing part of the display. The sequences during “Yeah Yeah” and “Arranca” were also very entertaining to watch and were particularly creative in rhythm and pace. Symmetry was never really lost throughout the display, being a little more apparent than the Australian performance.

While the display was enjoyable, I thought that it suffered from the lack of a strong thematic connection in relation to the fireworks. The theme had been inspired by love and, thus, offered the potential for some emotional transitions during the display. Unfortunately, I did not fully grasp the relation between the fireworks and the selected soundtrack, and it was not clear to me as to how the music, by itself, conveyed the theme. Again, there were some choices that served to reflect the theme, but, at the same time, there were others that did not seem emotionally-driven enough to successfully evoke the correct transitions that I had previously envisioned. Like many others have expressed, I, too, had mixed feelings as to the overall musical choices.

Apart from the theme, there were several points where repetitive firing patterns had been observed, particularly with the rainbow-like pattern created at low- to mid-level. The waterfall arrangement also became a little too frequent for my taste. Color diversity was good, but there were moments where it was a little more reserved. Like Australia, some colors tended to fade relatively quickly, particularly the blue, though this is likely related to the damper air present at the time. The finale was decent and had some fantastic nautical shells to accompany upper-level activity. However, it was on the short side, and the music used to go along with it didn’t really give off the “happily-ever-after” impression! I was actually envisioning “Paradise” to be a more fitting way to conclude the display.

All in all, a very good first display by Merlin Fireworks, and I am sure that we will be seeing the British team again in the future!

Trav.