Thanks to everyone who helped make this canada one of the best yet for us at Archangel.
With our busiest day of the year done with, we will be turning our attention to two competitions in Quebec in the following weeks.
The first of the two is Les Grands Feux Telus on July 14th to 18th. Les Grand Feux Telus is a Nation wide competition featuring pyrotechnic talent from all across Canada. The competition takes place in Sherbrook, Quebec and our display is on Saturday the 17th of July.
The second competition of the month is The Grands Feux Loto-Québec. This will be Archangel's second year at the international competition and we are looking to take home top prize once again for Canada. Competition begins July 21st. . Wish us luck!
Lastly, thanks to all who came out for the tent sale and also congratulations to the winners of all of our awesome prizes!
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Need fireworks for Canada Day? We would love to help you out!
Stop by our store located at 104 Pembina Highway on Friday, June 25th between 2 p.m. - 8 p.m. for our awesome "Shake the Lake" tent event! We are going to having discounts of up to 50% on selected fireworks and we will be giving away the following 19 (!!!) fireworks packages:
Grand Prize: 1 Ammo Crate packed with kick-ass fireworks (valued at $549.99 mrsp)!
Secondary Prizes: 6 x Sky Poppers fireworks packages (valued at $64.99 mrsp each) 6 x Boom Town fireworks packages (valued at $59.99 mrsp each) 6 x House Party fireworks packages (valued at $39.99 mrsp each)
With Canada Day just around the corner you'll want to beat the lineups! Right now is the perfect time to come into the store to pick out your fireworks and have your show custom choreographed. Our friendly and experienced staff can't wait to help you put up the best show in your neighbourhood!
Monday, May 31, 2010
With the May Long Weekend behind us and the odd mosquito biting, we are now officially geared up for the summer ahead of us.
There are a lot of fantastic new products in the showroom for you to show off to your friends and neighbours. Do we dare say that they may replace old favourites?
Just to get your mouth watering, here are a few of our staff suggested must haves:
Fan Dahlia is a 25 shot splayed cake with colourful tails to floral bursts with a crackling good finale. Hell Breaks Loose is a cake sure to please with 25 shots of spinners and colourful bursts and a noise you will have a hard time describing. Slingshot is small but mighty with 16 quick shots of silver spinners. For only $2.99 when purchased in-store, no fireworks show should be without. Devil Tattoo is cool to look at without even lighting the fuse. This star-shaped cake has 15 shots of coloured stars to crackling bursts. Just because a 12 ball Roman Candle isn't ballsy enough, we now have the baker's dozen version (that's 13 balls). Can't decide what you want, but you want to impress everyone at the cottage. You will be the envy when you haul out the Ammo Crate full of explosive fun.
Don't forget to visit us at the store this summer. You will receive professional (and not to mention AWESOME) help in selecting the perfect fireworks for your needs. We will work with any budget to help you give the best show and have the most fun.
Stayed tuned for an exciting Archangel Fireworks' announcement......
Some of you may have noticed that we have some REALLY great photos of our shows. That is because we are extremely lucky to have a very talented and experienced photographer at our service.
Geoff Lussier of Icarus Photografix graduated from the University of Manitoba, School of Art with a 4 year Bachelor of Fine Art Honours degree. He started off a long way from photography, majoring in drawing/mixed media with a focus on drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, Polaroid photography, lots of coffee grounds and auto body putty.
It wasn't until the late 90's that he really got into digital photography and computers through the jobs he found himself in, doing web design and working with Photoshop doing restoration and manipulation of images.
What Geoff is known best for is his breath taking panoramics and his voodoo magic photoshoppery. He can often be found dodging lighting bolts and running through mud filled ditches in the middle of the night to get that perfect starscape or Aurora Borealis; "Doing the odd extreme stuff makes the normal everyday shooting seem easy - that is till you realize that is your normal shooting day." says the artist.
People often ask Geoff how to shoot fireworks so I thought I would ask the same question and see what advice he had, candidly he answered: "Don't put a slow CF card in your 5DII to shoot video. Stick with what you know - stick with stills and screw video!" referring to a crazy experience at the Saskatoon Fireworks Festival where I demanded video of the show, "Other than that keep at it and practice. Fireworks are completely random what ends up in the shot. You get good ones and lots of bad ones. The only control you have is where you set up and ambient light exposure. Everything else is luck of the draw"
Geoff's work can be found on his website and for all of you photography buffs out there, he runs highly regarded photography forum as well!
It is a privilege to have such a talent artist as a part of the Archangel Fireworks team.
Let's face it, the holidays are stressful, I get tired even thinking about them sometimes! I have a to do list the size of a billboard, everyone is bustling about getting ready to host huge holiday feasts or New Years Eve parties, shopping for last minute gifts, visiting with friends and family.
It is my job to make the lives of my customers a little easier this season, I want to help them out so they can cross one more thing off their list or have some extra time to themselves to sit back and relax and think about the year that has passed and the new year to come.
The staff at Archangel Fireworks have over 200 years of experience shooting fireworks (seriously, we counted) so you know you are in good hands. We are here and ready to help you with any of your fireworks needs.
Our federally trained fireworks specialists will put together awe-inspiring displays that will blow the northern lights right out of the sky.
We will happily choreophraph and label your fireworks in the perfect firing order and give you clear and detailed tips from our pros on how to light your display.
Our dangerous goods shipping experts are ready to carefully pack and ship your fireworks anywhere in Canada; even the really cold and far away places (Hello to Mario in Inuvik, N.W.T!).
Are you wondering how fireworks and Christmas trees and "Winter Gardens" go together? We were as confused as you are, but after a lot of planning, a lot of hard work and a lot of hot glue gun burns we have come up with an idea that will either be a smash hit or make children cry at the sight of our horrible monstrosity. Either way, it will be a great time and it's all for charity.
Come see our amazing (or possibly horrifying) badass tree!
Fall is upon us again, which means I have more time to update our blog and our website to keep all you folks entertained. This summer was an extremely busy one, the Archangel team took on three competitions (winning two of the three) and participated in a fireworks festival as well!
Here is a quick run down of this summers events:
Vancouver, British Columbia; HSBC Celebration of Light -
After winning this competition twice in a row we were back again to defend our title as grand champions. Our show this year was entitled "No Place Like Home" and we told the story of The Wizard of Oz in our trademark style utlizing certain shells to represent different characters and aspects of the story, despite putting up an amazing show we did not take home another trophy.
This is what it looked like from my point of view:
The crew for this show was: Kelly Guille Daniel Picton Ken Bauer Leiah Beck
Special thanks to the amazing local crew for all their help!
Moosomin Saskatchewan; Living Skies Come Alive - This was a first annual fireworks competition held in Moosomin, Saskatchewan. Although this competition only had two teams competing it was by no means small scale, each night a full sized pyro-musical display lit up the night sky. Our show was titled "Gun fight at the O.K. Corral" and featured a theatrical old western style soundtrack. Our team was chosen as the first winner of this fantastic competition and we are pleased to display the trophy in our showroom.
This video was shot by one of the supervisors on the firing site which can be a pretty intense place to be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuP63RiWq8o <- beware, some of the language may be offensive to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.
The crew for this show was: Tim Langevin Candice Mitchell Danny McDowell Dave and Peggy Hildebrand Andrew Krywonizka
Special thanks to the team from Ruggieri Fireworks from Regina for all their help!
Québec City, Québec; Les Grands Feux Loto-Québec -
This was the first appearence at Les Grands Feux in Québec city, the site is absolutely amazing with firing sites on either side of the tops and base of picturesque Montmorency Falls. The site requires the teams split up and work with local pyrotechnicians at the different firing locations. Although a challenging location the Archangel team is ALWAYS up for a challenge and put up an amazing show titled "Diamonds are forever" and we were able to represent the diamond studded soundtrack beautifully. Our team took home first place at this prestigious international fireworks competition against teams from the UK, South Africa, Spain and Italy.
The crew for this show was: Kelly Guille Shawn Frosst Danny McDowell Sean Morris
Special thanks to the local pyrotechnicians for all their help!
Saskatoon Saskatchewan; Saskatoon Fireworks Festival -
The Archangel fireworks team had a chance to participate in this wonderful second annual fireworks festival in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. The firing site was located on the Victoria Bridge which spans the south Saskatchewan river through the centre of the city and presented its own special challenges in terms of design and set up, but as I have said before, the Archangel team is ALWAYS up for a challenge! Our show at this festival was titled "Frequency" and featured another (surprise!) non-traditional soundtrack of electronic dance music. As this was a festival and not a competition there were no winners or losers, just a great couple of shows!
I guess most people didn't have their video cameras out that night! This one was the best I could find to showcase the show, however you can't really hear the music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqnRuRFsU4I
The crew for this show was: Leiah Beck Candice Mitchell Kelly Van Caeyezeele Dave and Peggy Hildebrand
Special thanks to the team from Ruggieri Fireworks from Regina for all their help!
And that, my friends, was the run down of some of the big events that Archangel Fireworks took part in this summer on top of The Forks & Assiniboine Park Canada Day Shows, Kenora Canada Day, Kenora Harbourfest, Portage La Prairie Canada Day, The Winnipeg Goldeyes shows, The Winnipeg Blue Bombers shows and many many many more!
So if you made it this far you can see why it has taken me SO long to update this blog!
We are now looking for a very happy winter with lots more fun events going on, so come visit us at the shop, see our new products/staff/trophys and Happy Diwali, Halloween, Guy Fawkes Day and any other excuse to SHOOT OFF SOME FIREWORKS!!!
Archangel Fireworks Inc. established in 1988, is proudly Manitoba owned and operated.
Archangel Fireworks offers a wide selection of Family fireworks, Commercial Fireworks, Indoor Pyrotechnics, Movie Effects, Confetti, L.E.D. and Glow Products. As a direct overseas importer, we combine select product from Spain, China, U.S.A. and Canada for a wide selection of quality effects at a competitive price.
Archangel fireworks is located in Winnipeg at 104 Pembina Hwy. We invite you to visit our showroom for a huge selection of family fireworks. Our friendly staff are all federally licesened display fireworks supervisors and would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Through our commitment to our craft Archangel Fireworks can work with any budget to provide you with the knowledge and exceptional service that will make your next event a stunning success. A willingness to adapt and a drive to excel, in all areas of entertainment explosives, have been key in the success of Archangel Fireworks Inc.
