Montreal’s fireworks season has finally come to an end. The winners were announced on Saturday: Britain, Germany and the United States.

Now that it’s all over, I present to you my awards for the 2007 Montreal fireworks season.

Best musical selection: USA. All Elvis. Bold, original. Putting a 30-minute fireworks display with a single artist’s songs takes quite a bit of work, but it seemed to do the trick. One caveat: Heartbreak Hotel just doesn’t scream “fireworks”. It’s a stretch taken too far.

Worst musical selection: France. Why am I listening to spoken word crap during a fireworks presentation? I want music to move me, not some guy talking.

Most clichéd musical selection: England. U2’s Beautiful Day. Need I say more?

Best musical synchronization: Germany. I hate to use the cliché of German efficiency, but in this case it’s apt. At one point a simple melody was played, and some near-ground fireworks were setup in a line representing the different notes. The fireworks played a piano, and it was done perfectly.

Best shape formation: USA. People always tell me that some fireworks are designed to turn into shapes, and I always have to take their word for it, because all I see is a bunch of dots in no discernable pattern. Though the shapes were obvious (a heart, a deformed cube symbolizing dice for Viva Las Vegas, numerals), at least they worked. But it was the very-well-done multicoloured happy faces that pleased the crowd the most.

Most pointlessly long delay between segments: Canada. For some reason, at points during the show, there was minutes of narration. That’s great if you’re reading to a five-year-old, but to everyone out there it just meant minutes of no fireworks. And to those who didn’t have radios, it was even worse.

Worst technical failure: Canada. A 22-minute delay only a couple of minutes into the show. I realize fireworks are dangerous and you don’t want to rush it, but the fans were getting restless near the end, and started chanting.

Biggest big bang finale: Canada. Wow. It’s one thing to have fireworks so bright that the entire crowd is lit up and you can see their faces. But our country’s finale brought the hand of God to lift the Sun over La Ronde for a minute or two. A well-deserved round of applause followed from the crowd who forgot all about their technical difficulties.

Best (free) vantage point: The parking lot - or whatever it is - on Notre Dame at Parthenais Street. Plenty of space, and it’s just across the river from where the action is.

Most over-rated vantage point: Jacques-Cartier Bridge. When you’re not being anally-probed by the RCMP, you can try and struggle with thousands of others to get a spot along a giant fence. If you’re not so lucky (and don’t have an extra hour to get up there early for a spot), you can stand on the closed roadway, with three fences between you and the fireworks, ensuring you can barely see a thing.

Best logistics: STM traffic control. The Papineau metro station was turned into Grand Central Station twice a week, with yellow tape, multiple ticket-takers and police stationed in such a way to ensure everyone got in and out safely. Extra trains were brought into service after the fireworks to take people home, and a similar operation was setup at Berri-UQAM for all the transfers to the orange line.

Worst logistics: Police traffic control. Whether Sainte-Catherine street was ever closed to traffic is a mystery. Either way, pedestrians didn’t care. During part of the season it was car-free because of a street fair in the Gay Village a few blocks down. But police made no effort to keep either pedestrians or vehicles out of the street, leading to them literally butting heads with each other.

Best critical evaluations: Paul’s Pyrotechnics Page. Detailed reports on every show going back over a decade. Well worth a few minutes to check out. (You can also check out the website of Georges Lamon in French)

Worst critical evaluations: Rhythme FM hosts. “Magnifique!” “Spectaculaire!” “Une des meilleurs!” The same words would follow every single show on the airwaves of the one station that broadcasts the music for the benefit of those outside La Ronde. Yeah, I realize they were all very good, and that you’re not going to put pyrotechnical engineers on, but don’t pretend like you’re evaluating something critically if you have no idea what you’re taking about, have never seen professional fireworks before and are just amused at the idea of bright lights.

Biggest missed opportunity: Rhythme FM. How expensive would it have been to drive a few vans down to the foot of the bridge and turn up the speakers so people could listen to the music? Most people who went down there didn’t have radios (and so only got half the experience). A golden marketing opportunity down the drain.

Most annoying people: Those god-awful glow-thing vendors. What exactly is the purpose of these things, other than to have little children wave them around in front of me while I’m trying to watch the fireworks? And not only are you peddling these wares before and after the show, you’re actually walking in front of everybody while the fireworks are going off, blocking our view! Go back to the Old Port and pick on some tourists.

My favourite is Worst critical evaluations, LOL. It's so true!

Fagstein @ http://blog.fagstein.com/?p=584

My personal favorite is this one:

"Best (free) vantage point: The parking lot - or whatever it is - on Notre Dame at Parthenais Street. Plenty of space, and it’s just across the river from where the action is." I'd also say that another good vantage point is right on De Lorimier since the street is on an incline relative to Notre-Dame, thus making it easy to see over everyone's heads and still getting a good view of the firing site.

And I also agree with Enkil about the worst critical evaluations. I'm also a fan of the "worst logistics" as well. Seriously, traffic control is awful on fireworks nights, especially when trying to get on highway 720 or Rene-Levesque from De Lorimier (they delay traffic sooooo long) sfter the fireworks are over.

Thanks for posting this, Enkil.

Trav.

Enkil,

Canada's 22-minute delay was an error caused by La Ronde not Fireworks Spectaculars. La Ronde officially apologized for the technical problem, but as you have fully proved, it doesn't matter, because the damage is already done.

http://www.pyroplanet.com/Article425.html?MDPROSID=11e775920f9f5dd53b4 c8aaffe7e4e1b

Things have changed this year at La Ronde. If a major problem is detected, the show is stopped immediately until the issue has been resolved. A similar situation happened with the team from Mexico.

Unloading product that has not been fired is very dangerous, and La Ronde does not want to perform this task with a large quantity of product due to a technical error.

Trying to locate an error in fireworks site, in the dark, with a ton of live explosives is very dangerous. Rushing to fix the problem because people are getting restless is NOT a valid excuse. Especially if they are people that did not pay to get into the park and fully support the competition.

The amount of work that goes into a display of this calibre is incomprehensible to some members of this forum. The fact that a major technical problem occurs that is not your fault and is completely out of your control must be incredibly frustrating.

I am disappointed in you Enkil for including this "award" and not having all the facts. You should be ashamed.

To Brad and the crew of Fireworks Spectaculars; I am deeply sorry for the technical error that ruined your display, and the false perception it has left on the general public.

Sean

Sean,

The thing is that Enkil didn't write all that-it was from that link at the end of his post, in which case, it was Fagstein's statements, so your comments should, and will be aimed at him.

With respect to what you said regarding Canada's delay, however, is completely true. That night, I felt very sorry for the team because of the extensive amount of work instilled in the performance, and yet suffered from a serious problem. I'm glad La Ronde took the fault, but it was much more painful for me knowing the magnitude of frustration the team must've been going through anyway. Seriously, I get uptight when people become restless, and at the same time ignoring what must be going through any given team's minds at that point in time; they are the ones who become frustrated and panic, and so you can only imagine how restless they can become when something like this occurs.

On behalf of the people, it's inevitable that they will react in a frustrated manner, merely because of the long wait before the fireworks. If an elongated delay were to come right after, it becomes naturally hard to keep the crowd under control, and they simultaneously forget all the important decisive factors, including the long hours of labor, in formulating the display for the audience in the first place.

The fact of the matter is that the mind is a powerful thing and perception is always present when your expectations are always at a certain level, not just for the fireworks, but for any event that people are anxious and impatient to witness.

Enkil,

Try to use quotations or a different style of text to represent anything coming from another source to avoid misunderstandings.

Edit: "Best critical evaluations: Paul’s Pyrotechnics Page. Detailed reports on every show going back over a decade. Well worth a few minutes to check out. (You can also check out the website of Georges Lamon in French)"

^^^
You gotta love that one.


Trav.

Yeah, I didn't write that article.

Smoke, I wrote in the title: "Fagstein's funny post about the montreal fireworks," and I gave a link to the article. Maybe I should've written something on top of the article.

Firemaster,

Actually, I totally agree with you. Personally, these delays don't really bother or frustrate me. I'm a very patient person, and I don't let these technical errors or delays influence my perception and review of the displays.

Enkil,

Yeah, it's true-I already knew from the title that it wasn't your handy work. And plus, as you said, you included the site at the end, so that should be good enough. You can always in addition, as previously mentioned, make the text in a different style to render the passage more visible if you want as well.

Does this guy usually write these articles each year after the competition, or is this his first time? I looked through the site, but I couldn't find any history.

Trav.

Hrm, I don't know. I was just searching on the net about the fireworks, and his page came up. It's obvious that he's a fan like us. He should post his reviews here lol.

Thanks for the comments. I'll update the post to clarify what caused the Canadian delay.

I've only been running the blog since February, so this is the first time I've written about the fireworks for it. I'm not a hard-core fan by any means, but I wanted to get a few things off my chest.

(Ashamed) Steve

Steve,

no need to feel ashamed! You wrote what you thought. We have the advantage here that some of us have access to inside information. One thing you'll find, though, is that us pyromaniacs are a pretty friendly bunch

Cheers,

Paul.

Steve,

Don't let that first experience deter you from joining us in whatever other discussion we may have! Since you are now indeed a registered member, I encourage you to participate as much as possible on this forum and become acquainted with the users.

Here's to an early warm welcome, my friend!

Trav.