Ten years on: the same sky, but on a different scale
In September 2016, the first international teams took over the Compiègne Racecourse without yet knowing what this new event would become. Ten years later, Les Masters de Feu have moved beyond the status of a simple pyrotechnic contest to become a fully fledged event, with its codes, its audience, its traditions, and that very particular anticipation that precedes each new firing sequence.
The principle has, in the end, hardly changed: bring genuine international pyrotechnic companies to Compiègne, give them comparable conditions, and let each one defend its own way of writing in the sky. Same duration, same budget, same theme; the rest belongs to each team’s sensibility. In 2026, Surex for Poland, Xena Pyrotechnics for the Netherlands, and Pirotecnia Minhota for Portugal will in turn take up the challenge.
This tenth anniversary also marks the beginning of a new cycle of Silver Masters, whose 2026, 2027 and 2028 winners will meet again at the 2029 grand final to try to win the Gold Master.
“What has interested me from the start is this confrontation of perspectives,” explains Édouard Grégoire, creator of Les Masters de Feu and ARTEVENTIA’s artistic director. “We give three teams exactly the same starting point and, fifteen minutes later, we discover three shows that often have almost nothing in common. That is where the competition truly becomes artistic.”
The Grand Ball: a theme before it is a constraint
To celebrate the tenth anniversary, the chosen theme is “The Grand Ball”.
It is up to the competitors to offer their interpretation: festive, elegant, romantic, contemporary, spectacular or unexpected. Each creation must translate this idea into music and images, without any particular aesthetic or narrative being imposed. The rules then become less a limitation than a shared starting point.
But in 2026, the theme does not begin with the first competitor.
ARTEVENTIA chose to establish it from the very start of the evening through a ten-minute show conceived by Loïc Delorieux. Out of competition, this creation deliberately draws on the codes of the imposed theme to introduce the audience to the world of the contest before the three international companies come, each in their own way, to take hold of it.
“I wanted the opening show to work almost like an invitation,” explains Loïc Delorieux, designer and firing director at ARTEVENTIA. “We had to step into the Grand Ball, immediately understand its energy and festive dimension, but without giving a definitive answer to the theme. The competitors then had to be able to tell their own story.”
This opening therefore plays a particular role. It is not conceived as a simple technical prologue or as an extra fireworks display in the programme. It must set the atmosphere, carry the audience into the evening, and prepare the artistic ground on which the competition will then unfold.
The presence of “Come Alive” as the compulsory music for the candidates also becomes one of the edition’s guiding threads. Each must integrate this same reference into their show and inscribe it within their own writing. The audience can then see very concretely what makes a designer unique: from a shared material, three completely different readings can emerge.
Behind the show: overall artistic and technical direction
Les Masters de Feu are also a distinctive project in ARTEVENTIA’s history because the company does not take part solely as a show creator.
It also provides artistic direction and technical direction, within an organisation led by Masters & Events Factory.
This means thinking through the rhythm of the evening as a whole, welcoming the international teams, defining the shared technical conditions, overseeing the firing zones, coordinating sound and lighting systems, organising transitions, and ensuring that each competitor can present their creation under comparable conditions.
At the Racecourse, the competition is prepared well before the audience arrives. Installations are deployed over several days, foreign teams take over their zones, products are checked, firing systems prepared, soundtracks tested, and the various sequences integrated into the overall run of show.
Technical responsibility therefore never stops at the success of a single effect. It consists in making a multitude of parameters work together without that complexity ever becoming visible to the audience.
“On an event like this, technical direction must be entirely in service of the competition,” explains Édouard Grégoire. “Each team must have the same framework, the same possibilities and the same requirements. Our role is to create the conditions in which artists can defend their vision, while making an evening of several hours run like a single show.”
This is also where the responsibilities of technical direction, carried by ARTEVENTIA’s teams with Gabriel Legrand at the helm, intersect with those of artistic direction. One defines the reality on the ground; the other builds the evening’s overall reading. At Les Masters de Feu, the two are inseparable.
An audience that no longer just watches
Over the years, the Les Masters de Feu audience has also become a component of the format.
Spectators watch, compare, discuss, choose their favourites and take part directly in the outcome through the Audience Award. In 2026, this relationship is further strengthened by the official app, which brings together the programme, practical information, tickets and the voting system.
For the tenth anniversary, ticket sales sold out several weeks before the evening. The event is part of a history that has already brought together more than 120,000 spectators since 2016, according to figures shared by the Tourist Office and the organisers.
Attendance, however, is only part of the phenomenon. What stands out most, year after year, is the audience’s loyalty. Some spectators have been coming since the first editions, others plan their trip months in advance, and discussions around the competition now begin well before September.
This community helps give the Masters a very particular atmosphere: popular enough to remain a great evening of entertainment, yet knowledgeable enough to observe musicality, synchronisation, colours, breaks, or staging choices.
A widely covered anniversary edition
The tenth anniversary also represents a particularly visible moment for the event.
In the months leading up to the evening, Les Masters de Feu benefit from coverage in the regional press and specialist media, as well as on platforms dedicated to leisure and tourism. The official press review lists several publications and media outlets devoted to the competition, while the City of Compiègne, the Tourist Office and various media share the anniversary edition’s programme.
Interest is no longer focused solely on the amount of fireworks fired or the evening’s spectacular dimension. The competition itself, the invited companies, the theme, behind-the-scenes, and the show’s technological evolution gradually become editorial subjects in their own right.
This visibility also tells the story of the journey made in ten years. An event imagined in Compiègne in 2016 has become a recognised fixture well beyond its local area, followed by a loyal audience and established enough to once again attract experienced international pyrotechnic companies.
Five shows, one evening
At 8:30 PM, the ARTEVENTIA opening show sets the first movement. Then comes the time for the competition.
Three companies.
Three countries.
Three 15-minute shows.
Three ways of responding to the same theme.
The creations are presented anonymously, with the competitors’ identities revealed only after the votes and deliberations. This choice is fundamental to the spirit of Les Masters de Feu: the audience and juries must be able to watch the show before they look at the flag.
After several hours of competition, the evening then shifts into its final movement.
For the tenth anniversary, ARTEVENTIA has conceived a closing show on an unprecedented scale in the event’s history, bringing together 800 drones, pyrotechnics and light. But this creation deserves a story of its own. It will therefore be the subject of a second Grand Moment devoted to Sky Choreography™, its writing, and the technical choices that made it possible to transform the skies of Compiègne into a true stage space.
Because this anniversary edition ultimately tells two stories in parallel.
That of a competition which, ten years after its creation, continues to bring together sensibilities from different countries.
And that of an event that has never stopped growing around this competition, evolving its staging, its artistic direction, its tools and its relationship with the audience.
The sky remains the same.
The way it is told, however, continues to change.
