The Celebration of Light

Last weekend I went to something known as the Celebration of Light down on English Bay, which is described as one of the best fireworks displays in the world. It consists of 3 nations showcasing their finest fireworks displays in competition with each other, with the best display being voted the winner. 

It lasts 3 days but I only managed to make it to one of the evenings (the first one). Apparently over the course of the 3 days around 1.5 million people flock to English Bay beach to witness the displays, and I can tell you that stat is most likely true. 

Knowing it was going to be busy we headed down early. The display started at 10pm but we got there at 7.30pm to get a good spot, which we managed, right in front of the barge the fireworks are set off from. We passed the time playing cards and chatting, whilst watching the stunning sunset over the mountains to the North West. Gradually the beach got busier and busier until you basically couldn't move or leave without walking over hundreds of people. 

Now, I'm not a big fan of large crowds and this is probably the largest I have been in and on one hand I was pretty uncomfortable, but on the other it was amazing to see so many people in one place. 

The fireworks themselves were somewhat anti-climactic in my personal opinion. Maybe they had been talked about in such esteem that I had ridiculous expectations. I always look back to the New Years displays of London and Sydney as a comparison. This wasn't even close. It was fairly poorly structured and not very choreographed. There were periods of dullness with the odd bit of greatness thrown in until it built up to a pretty special crescendo. 

This was from day 3, Italy's display. I didn't take this pic.

I'm glad I went and would probably go each year, but I wouldn't go to all 3 events each year (sadly I think the one I went to was the poorest of the 3 nations, Vietnam) and honestly the very long wait in order to get a good viewpoint is a bit of a put off. Oh, and the journey home was hell. 500,000 people trying to leave at once is not pleasant and in order to avoid a crush people we sent in the opposite direction of their goal, the SkyTrain (which by the way, was ridiculously busy to say the least)