As for having a forum members' get together, I'm definitely for it. I'll be on Notre Dame / de Lorimier, just like in the old days. I would have attended the Symposium proper, but I can't take the time off work unfortunately.

Does someone plan to go on Notre-Dame/de Lorimier Wednesday night? I'm thinking about it and I'm a little bit reluctant, since the show is schedule late (10pm) and we have few information about duration and quality that we should expect. Transport to come back at home would also be an issue if the show is delayed. Before making a finale decision, I would like to know if anyone has more information about the show or plan to go in front of La Ronde.

Fred

P.S.: Also, does someone know more about Friday display?

From CNW/Telbec:

Opening of the 10th Edition of the International Symposium on Fireworks

MONTREAL, Oct. 15 /CNW Telbec/ - Today is the opening of the 10th Edition of the International Symposium on Fireworks which take place in Montréal from October 15 to 19. This symposium took place for the very first time in Montréal in 1992, an initiative of Canadian Research Laboratory on Explosives in collaboration with La Ronde and it soon became the world's premiere international gathering of the pyrotechnic industry. The emphasis of the
Symposia is on the presentation of papers and the discussion of topics dealing with the safety, scientific, artistic, and regulatory aspects of fireworks and other pyrotechnics associated with fireworks displays.

The Symposium comes back in Montréal to celebrate its 10th edition and the local committee is composed of the director and the technical director of L'International des Feux Loto-Québec presented by TELUS, Martyne Gagnon and Paul Csukassy. The honorary chairman is Jean Bissonnette who had been inspector of Natural Resources of Canada during more than 23 years and has
greatly contributed to the development of Montréal's competition. "It is important to realize that no other form of entertainment can give so much fun and admiration to thousands of spectators at the same time, says Jean Bissonnette."

During this event, firms are invited to showcase their products as well as their design to the whole industry represented in Montréal. These presentations will be displayed from La Ronde, this coming Wednesday and Friday, October 17 and 19 around 10 a.m. Please note that La Ronde is not open during the week.

About the Symposium: The International Symposium on Fireworks Society (ISFS) is a non-profit organization registered in Halifax, in 2000.

Hi Fred,

the Wednesday displays are supposed to start at 10pm - I don't know what time for Friday but I would imagine it will also be 10pm.

As far as I know the Wednesday display will include Dancing Fireworks, but I'm not sure who else. Since Royal Pyrotechnie is the Canadian importer of Dancing, I'm 100% certain that their demonstration will have been choreographed by Yannick Roy. It's also well known that Patrice Guy works for Glorious Group and so there's a strong likelihood that he design their demo. I'd also imagine that we'll see at least one Italian display on Wednesday too.

For the Friday display, this will almost certainly be pyromusical and Panzera will definitely by doing part of this show. I'm also fairly certain that Piroechnia Caballer will also be doing the Friday show as they're one of the main Symposium sponsors this year. If I find out anything more, I'll let everyone know.

I'll be down at Notre Dame / de Lorimier at around 9:30 on Wednesday. It would be great to meet others from the forum down there!

Paul.

I will certainly be at Notre Dame & de Lorimier by 9:30 at the latest.

I will be there on Wednesday for sure. I will be heading over after my class ends at 8:15. Hopefully I will be dragging some of my friends with me. Im so excited for these shows.

A rather small crowd (six of us where I was standing) turned out in almost perfect conditions to enjoy two displays this evening. We were actually better placed than the Symposium boat due to the lack of wind and some smoke accumulation. The first display was by Dancing Fireworks and was very impressive and certainly appreciated by the faithful few! I'm not sure who put on the second display but am assuming it was one of the Italian companies listed in the Symposium program. Smoke did spoil this display to some extent but it was still well received with an exciting finale. Since there were six companies listed as giving demos, that means that Friday evening should have four displays. If they're anything like tonight's, we're certainly in for a treat!

Paul.

I agree... I wasn't sure what to expect, but this 20min show turned out to be really good. Better than the Pyjama shows anyway... lol. It was somewhat simple in design, but the effects and the quality of the pieces were excellent. I enjoyed more the first display! And the finale of the second one was excellent (loved the salutes!!). I think it was more intense than the finales we saw this year lol.

I'm very excited for Friday. A one hour display would be amazing...! It was really nice meeting everyone tonight, Tyler, Paul, his wife and everyone else.

Bonsoir

Nous étions deux spectateurs intéressés par les feux d'artifices lancés de la Ronde à ce gros party privé de la pyrotechnie.
J'étais sur la rive sud en bordure du fleuve le long de la piste cyclable.

Je ne sais même pas le nom de la firme qui a présenté le spectacle.
Comme j'étais en manque..de feux je me suis installé et je me suis laissé remplir les yeux sans même le goût de juger quoi que ce soit..juste regarder pour le plaisir de regarder et aimer cà.

Et c'était beau pas assez long à mon goût mais beau sous un ciel dégagé...

Je serai là Vendredi probablement dans le bout de Notre Dame et Delorimier.

Bonne nuit amis pyromaniaques.

Roger

I'm quite appreciative of the small commentaries so far, so thank you, Enkil, Paul, and Roger, for sharing your comments! I'm also equally delighted to know that the weather cooperated, despite the smoke accumulations present. I'm looking forward in seeing Tyler's videos as well.

Sounds like I missed a nice night, especially now knowing that the finales were exciting and that the effects were relatively good... Just curious, but were de Lorimier and Notre-Dame closed to traffic? (I doubt it)

Take care, guys, and thanks again for the brief comments.

Trav.

I heard the symposium participants were a tough crowd to please...

I'm not there so I cannot say anything about the show. Just got feed back from someone who's there...

I guess when you are around people who's into big productions they have high expectations.

Like in Berlin, they were very very critical.... Would love to see the video...

The six of us were actually in a much better position to see the displays, being directly in front of the firing ramps, compared to the Symposium folks who were somewhat upriver on a boat and were thus not at the best angle to see. Also, the smoke headed in their direction too.

No roads were closed to traffic, but some police cars did appear towards the end of the second display and a few cars had stopped on Notre Dame to watch. Our group was actually further east than de Lorimier as there was an area next to the railway tracks that afforded a better view.

As for the design of the displays, we have to remember that they were product demonstrations. The first one, for Dancing Fireworks of China, was fired by Royal Pyrotechnie (since they are Dancing's Canadian importer). This display was well choreographed and allowed the different products to be seen without being repetitive or boring. I don't yet know who did the second display. This one, I'm pretty sure, was Italian, but I was surprised not to see any studatas or other multibreak shells. However, there were some very nice blue skymines that transitioned to gold tourbillons.

I'm sure Tyler will post the videos on YouTube soon!

Paul.

I'll be looking forward to those videos funny how most pyros can identify which country made the fireworks! hehehehe!! Any italian company offers extra special finales most of the time!! I wish i was there! hehehe!! From what group would the 1 hour fireworks come from?

Friday will have displays from four companies:

Glorious Group
Panzera
Pirotecnia Caballer
Pirico or Morsani (one of these fired last night)

Word on the street is that Patrice Guy has choreographed a huge display for Glorious - with the other three I'm just guessing that we could be in for up to an hour of fireworks (hopefully!). That said, at the 2003 Symposium, the Tuesday night displays at Sueca lasted almost 90 minutes and the display on the Thursday night was 25 minutes from Lacroix-Ruggieri and 30 minutes from Pirotecnia Caballer for a total of 55 minutes. Just a pity the weather forecast is somewhat grim at the moment.

Paul.

Well I was there last night and I clearly saw some of you guys but didn`t know if I should of said hi or whatever. I`m a bit on the shy side so I just sat there playing on my cell phone instead lol.

I thought the shows were pretty good. It was kinda funny seeing all the cars try and stop and watch and then the cops come and move them away over and over again.

Reflections_of_earth, the reason why we could tell it was an Italian company was because they blew up the Italian flag about 15 times last night

Hahahahaha! But another thing why you could identify italian shows cause of their particular style of shells! Their nothing near normal shells that we see being fired every new year! heheheheh! their mostly cylindrical and th effects are mostly complex! Any one knows any of the songs used by the italian company? or the chinese group?? I can't wait for the videos!! I love this symposiums! They always show the best of the companies presenting!

Neither of the demos last night was a pyromusical. As for cylindrical shells in the Italian show, they really weren't that evident. What gave it away was the very good Roman Candles - everyone knows that Chinese companies cannot build Roman Candles that have consistent timing. One part of the display made me think that, perhaps, it was Caballer - this was the use of star mine comets - and I know that Caballer also make good Roman candles. The shells were not as Italian as I would have thought - but given that there are three Italian companies giving demonstrations at this Symposium (as well as two Chinese and one Spanish) there's a good chance that it was one of the Italians. I'll find out for sure later today.

Paul.

I just heard that last nights demo by Morsani of Italy wasn't their product! Their shipment from Europe was held up and didn't arrive in Montreal - so what we saw last night was a "best effort" based on what could be obtained locally in the Montreal area - so those star mine comets that I wondered may be Caballer almost certainly were. This would explain the lack of special effects shells. All that said, the display was still enjoyable but I just wanted to make sure that people know that what we saw certainly isn't representative of the type of shells that Morsani manufacture.

Also note that the fireworks tomorrow, Friday, will begin at 9:45pm and should last around 45 minutes.

Paul.

That's sad that they weren't able to ship their products properly!! It would have been a much better display (most probably) If they used italian shells hehehe!!! I wish that you all will get a nice display tomorrow! (today for me) hehehehehe!!

Hey Gang,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40SMnC6plUk is the link for the Dancing Fireworks display (the first one) from last night. Sorry about the rather poor YouTube quality. Can somebody recommend a good file-sharing website for me to upload my 73 MB compressed (but not compressed by YouTube) version for you all to download if you wish? I also have the 1.5 GB version which looks really good!

I have to get back for the second period of the game - but enjoy for now. I'll do what I can to have the 2nd display on YouTube before I go to bed.

Tyler

Thank you very much for the video, Tyler-it was fantastic! I look forward to seeing the other one, too. The clip made me feel as if I was there along side you guys, especially since you were right up front on Notre-Dame! A lot of nice sequenced shots in that video from right to left, and the last couple of minutes was quite explosive in what appeared to be the finale! I also thought I heard one of you guys let out a laugh in the end there.

You can upload your videos to sites like yousendit.com or megaupload. On yousendit, you can upload files up 100 MB, after which requires a premium account if the file size is beyond that. I think megaupload's maximum is 500 MB, though. Anyway, I usually use these particular two and they work wonders. Here's the links:

http://www.yousendit.com/

http://www.megaupload.com/

Thanks again, Tyler! I can't wait to see what else you've captured!

Trav.

1.5 gb? can't you make that a bit lower like 100 - 200 mb? its ok if the quality isnt that good! I just can't upload that big files! You should be able to make it smaller with windows media player!

So who is going tonight?

'Morning all,

Trav - you're welcome, it's my pleasure. Glad you enjoyed it. And I'll watch it again to try and figure out who laughed - though I think it was Paul laughing at the two young guys on bicycles, a ways behind us, who were really enjoying the display!

Reflections_of_earth - I'm uploading the 73MB version right now to MegaUpload. I use Final Cut Pro and/or iMovie to edit/compress my videos and exporting them, unfortunately, always seems hit or miss. Let's call it a science that I'm trying to learn!

Canuck - I will be there again tonight, where the handfull of us were on Wednesday night - feel free to join us for the displays! I don't want to put words in their mouths, but Paul, Enkil and Roger (Passion) all gave me the unwavering impression that they'd be back tonight, rain or shine... or pouring rain.

And to all of you - sorry I couldn't get the second display uploaded last night - I was very tired after a long week and the Canadiens' loss didn't do anything to lift my spirits and motiviate me to stay up . I should, without any difficulty, have the second display on both YouTube and MegaUpload well before heading down for tonight's displays.

Tyler

Here we go, the Dancing Fireworks display is available for downlad here http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LMJRWBD0

It is only available for 10 days-ish, so download now or forever hold your peace.

Tyler

Hey TRae,

You can also use Rapidshare.com. You can upload up to 100mb, but they delete files that have not been accessed for three months or longer.

You can also use VirtualDub to minimize the 1.5GB video without decreasing the quality. If the video is in .mov format, it probably won't work. I think the 70mb video is good enough for most of us. But there are Web sites out there that allow you to upload up to 2GB. I think you should use the 1.5GB for your DVD collection, hehe.

See you later. Thanks for the videos!

Can someone upload this without using rapishare or megaupload? they just don't work for me! huhuhuhuhu!!

I'll upload them both to the Members Only Videos section of the forum Once I've been able to get them from Megaupload. Tyler, if you contact me I'll work out a way to get them uploaded here without having to go through any of those other sites.

By the way, I won't be there this evening on Notre Dame / de Lorimier so you'll have to watch without me. It's not as bad as it sounds though - I will actually be at La Ronde for the Symposium Gala Dinner (which, of course, includes watching the fireworks). And before anyone asks, I'm afraid there are no tickets available for this event. Sorry.

Cheers,

Paul.

We're about 3 hours and 45 minutes away from what should be a great night of displays. To celebrate, here's Morsani's display from Wednesday on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtkFVIjg8b8

I will get in touch with Paul in order to have the Symposium videos available for download through our "Members Only Videos" link.

Hope to see a bunch of you tonight,
Tyler

Latest update...

The fireworks could be postponed to tomorrow for strong winds... This comes from inside LaRonde organisation.