During the Swedish show, the national public broadcaster, Radio-Canada, has experimented a drone-based device to achieve a live broadcast of an event through its Facebook page.

That was a first experiment and several things didn't work well (no sound, lack of stability with the live transmission, etc.). Nonetheless, if you want to watch, click here:

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/regions/Montreal/2016/07/27/002-feux-artifi ce-montreal-coulisses-loto-quebec-parc-jean-drapeau.shtml

For this special event, the Web team of Radio-Canada also did a 43-minute behind-the-scene report of the Montreal fireworks competition. It is available on the linked page, just below the drone broadcast video.

Fred

A few questions:

In the beginning of the interview, Paul Csukassy says that 17 local pyrotechnicians work with 5-10 pyrotechnicians from a representing firm. Normally, I would think that a firm's pyrotechnicians alone should setup the fireworks since the setup can influence how the fireworks are launched. For example, couldn't a firm blame a technical error on a local pyrotechnician? What if the error is not the fault of the firm or its pyrotechnicians?

He also says that most of the pieces are transported by boat. I'm assuming the boats arrive at the port of Montreal. But how are the pieces sent to La Ronde's site? Are all the pieces transported via the Jacques Cartier bridge, or is it from another bridge on the Saint Helen island?

Great behind-the-scene report!

The ships arrive at many different ports - depends where they originate from. Sometimes it's Vancouver or Halifax or even Port Elizabeth in New Jersey. From those ports, they are transported by road or even by rail and are stored at Royal's 1.1-rated storage site near Ste Pie. Then they're transported by road to La Ronde. To be honest, I'm not sure which bridge they take to get to the site as neither bridge is easy for a 53' trailer.

As for technical errors, it's up to the visiting pyro team to decide who connects what. Each crew member has access to the setup plans and presumably everything is labeled. No matter who sets up the fireworks, the visiting team has ultimate responsibility for all the checking and testing as far as I understand. Then there's errors that are the result of technical failures of modules and cables - these are outside of the control of anyone really.

For the setup in general, there's a lot of "raw" site work to do before any fireworks are installed and so the local crew do all of this - the positioning of all the mortars and racks, etc. etc. This all has to be done before any products are installed and wired to the firing modules.

Paul.