Yesterday I was taken on a tour of the Celebration of Light fireworks barge with two of the other judges on the panel, Maggie Langrick who is the entertainment editor of the Vancouver Sun and Greg Albrecht of brand.LIVE, the company that organizes the fireworks events.

I must say that it’s pretty lawless out there on the water with the USA putting together their show for tonight. There’s loose gunpowder laying around on the deck everywhere, workers drinking alcohol while haphazardly putting the show together, I was actually juggling a smoke and my camera in my other hand when I shot this photo of a charge in my hand and nobody said anything…

I’m kidding, of course! They run a super tight ship out there in English Bay. Everything is by the book and incredibly organized, as you can well imagine. The fire marshall actually boarded and dropped off some permits while we were on our tour and he said that he and his men keep a close watch over the operation, not that they have to.

The firework I’m holding in my hand is actually a dummy with no gunpowder in it and below is a cross section model of it which shows how intricate of a design it is. The way it works firing these in the air is that there’s a booster charge type of thing (excuse my super technical language here) placed inside of a tube with an electrical igniter below it, then this ball thing is placed on top of it. There are hundreds of these tubes out there on the barge, dug into the sand that covers it, and they’re all attached to a computer in the firing tower which signals exactly when each of them go off, timed to the music.

Here’s another example of one of the fireworks, this kind is cylindrical (and HUGE! it’s like 12 inches in diameter) but is fired using the same method. And of course this one is a dummy with no actual gunpowder in it, a cross section of what it looks like inside one of the actual ones.

See you tonight at the Celebration of Light fireworks in English Bay!