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Platinum Jupiter, (a one-time only award) since all of the competitors had previously all won Gold. This year, WECO Feuerwerk was invited once again to perform for the grand opening of the event. Unlike most previous years (except for the one mentioned), all of this year’s participants were prior Silver or Gold Jupiter recipients. Even the popular “jury of nineteen” (a jury comprised of a thoughtfully intermixed compilation of backgrounds, ages and genders) had all been selected from previous juries. Because of the expertise of this year’s participants, having experienced jurors was certainly an important prerequisite. Judging the best of the best is always a very arduous task. As in every previous competition, all displays were judged according to the following criteria: Pyrotechnic pieces: Diversity and quality of the pieces as well as diversity and richness of colors used; Synchronization: Precision of simultaneity between the music, fireworks elements and sound effects; Soundtrack: Selection of music and the mixing from one musical piece to another; Technical design: Use of space, density of products and the ability to sustain the same level of quality performance throughout the display; Pyromusical concept: How the music relates to the quantity and the choice of pyrotechnic pieces and the originality and dynamic rhythm of the entire display. The way the evaluations were handled this year (as in previous years) was like this: immediately after the completion of each pyromusical, each juror completed their evaluation of the display. At the end of the overall competition, all of the marks were tallied and the prizes were awarded based on the aggregated scores. This year’s 2014 participating contestants/ companies were: ● Pirotecnica Morsani of Italy–winner of the Gold Jupiter in 2011. ● Vicente Caballer of Spain–winner of the Gold Jupiter in 1986 and 2003 ● Team Canada: Royal Pyrotechnie–winner of the Gold Jupiter in 2003 and 2009 AND Fireworks Spectaculars Canada–winner of the Gold Jupiter in 2010. ● Melrose Pyrotechnics of the USA–winner of the Gold Jupiter in 2006 and the Bronze Jupiter in 2009.
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● Brezac Artifices of France–winner of the Silver Jupiter in 2006 and the Bronze Jupiter in 2010. ● Foti’s International Fireworks of Australia– winner of the Silver Jupiter in 2001 and the Bronze Jupiter in 2006. As a veteran reporter covering this competition for the past 22 years, I always find it personally interesting to see how the various styles and displays evolve–particularly since computerized firing has become so ubiquitous. (If I’m correct, the last time a display used any manual firing during a presentation was in in Montreal in 2006). Despite all of electronics, though, we still witnessed pyrotechnic time delays used when firing chains of shells with even the highest cue-counts (6,884 by Vicente Caballer) being > complemented by a large numbers of traditional