I found a very interesting video from the Montreal Fireworks Competition 1987.

It shows some excerpts from the shows and some clips from the firing area.

Watch it here

Vander

This is a great video! Already at only the 3rd edition of the event, they are claiming it as the best competition in the world! Nice to see a young(ish) looking Giovanni Panzera in charge too!

Paul.

That's somehow funny to see things that are not permitted anymore being used in 1987 :

* Waterskiing on the Dolphins Lake with fountains attached to one's back
* The parachute shells during one of the displays (was it in 1987 that they were banned for good due to flaming remnants falling on the newly built Monstre ?)
* The sheer amount of rockets in the set-up shots
* No blast walls on Ramp #1 (called Ramp #3 back then) for 8"-10"-12" shells
* The way the containers were loaded (seemed quite full to me, but some things looked like mortars)


Safety did increase a lot since these years ! What a challenge it must be to balance safety and improvement of the techniques used...

Also, La Ronde went a long way since then :

* Speakers are no longer on the lake (where Ramp #4 now stands)
* A floating stage was added
* The Silver grandstands were improved and capacity increased (recently)
* The firing station is less cramped these days and affords a better view to the crew

That was nice to watch !

STL

Funny you mentioned the parachutes, in that video, one of igual's Y parachutes got stuck to some sort of a building. Could have been the reason why they are now banned

The container that was opened was a container full of roman candles already partly set up. Seems they are ready to be placed in the ramps just to be fused!

Vander

I really enjoyed the video, as it was very interesting to get an overview of the competition in 1987! The excerpts that were shown of the various displays in this video appeared to be quite dazzling! Towards the end, it was neat to hear that over 250,000 spectators attended the Panzera display alone!

As for the parachute shells, the last participant to make use of them was Switzerland 1999, but the team had been disqualified due to the shells being previously banned. That said, parachute shells must have been prohibited well before 1999.

Very nice and informative video! 80's and 90's all the way!

Trav.

STL: Group F had performers on the lake with fountains etc. in 2005: http://montreal-fireworks.com/cgi-bin/rep.cgi?head2005,france05,tail20 05

As for the parachutes, I believe the ones in the video were from rockets but, as you rightly point out, parachute shells are also banned. The video makes a good case for this actually!

I'm sad to see fewer companies using rockets these days!

As for ramp 1 and lack of blast walls, the video doesn't show these, but they were there. I visited the ramps prior to 1999 when the current setup had been installed and there were some concrete shields, but not as comprehensive as the current ones.

Now if I can just get my friend organized to digitize his videos of the 1985 season!

Paul.