Australian fireworks presentation on July 4
The annual fireworks festival has its closing ceremony tonight at 10 p.m., which will be your last chance to see these amazing shows until next summer.
As usual, the best (free) spot to view them is in the parking lot where René Lévesque and Notre Dame meet (Papineau metro). Be sure to bring a radio (105.7FM) to listen to the music that goes with the display.
You can see detailed reports and photos of the previous presentations at the fan site montreal-fireworks.com.
I’m curious to know why your parking lot is a better place than the bridge.
If you use the bridge, you have two options:
1. You go on the narrow pedestrian walkway on the east (well, actually north) side. Because there are thousands of people going here and you can’t really walk through there after everyone’s setup, this means you have to get there at least an hour or two in advance of the fireworks.
2. You go on the closed roadway, which has plenty of room, but it means you have not one but three fences between you and the fireworks (one next to the roadway, and the suicide barriers on either side of the pedestrian walkway). This severely restricts your view.
The parking lot has neither of these problems. You can get there minutes before the fireworks start (or even while they’re in progress) and you have a completely unrestricted view, about as good as you’ll get without paying to see them at La Ronde directly.
I agree with the parking lot, too. But actually next week is the last show…kinda. They added an extra mini-show as a tribute to Michael Jackson.
That suicide barrier sure sucks.
— sigh — I recall the very first year when we climbed up all over the place in the bridge structure (how many times did I get on one of those signals gangtries) and the cops didn’t say anything at all…
Ahhh, the good old times…
It was underwhelming. Too much talking and not enough exploding.
For anyone who’s interested and missed out on any of this year’s displays, I have full videos taken from “centre stage” at La Ronde available for download on my website. You just have to become a member of the forum to be able to access these. http://montreal-fireworks.com/forum/index.php?
It was certainly a good season though this past Saturday’s show seems to have generated a lot of controversy – it was definitely a better experience when viewed from the grandstands at La Ronde as a lot of the effects were low-level and would have been difficult to see from outside of the park.
Results of the competition will be announced on the 22nd followed by a 5-10 minute tribute to Michael Jackson using the leftover fireworks from the competition that didn’t go off the first time.
Paul.
Happy to report that Canada won the competition and the best soundtrack awards this year.
From http://www.montreal-fireworks.com :
Gold Jupiter: Royal Pyrotechnie (Quebec/Canada)
Silver Jupiter: Pyromagic Productions (Hong Kong / China)
Bronze Jupiter: Melrose Pyrotechnics (USA)
Soundtrack Jupiter: Royal Pyrotechnie (Quebec/Canada)
Green Achievement: Foti’s International Fireworks (Australia)
This is only the second time that a Canadian company has won the top prize, the first time also being Royal Pyrotechnie in 2003.
Paul.
Australia was awesome. Absolutely the best fireworks I’ve seen. Too bad they didn’t win.