Ready, Waiting for Boom

NBC 4: Red, White and Boom! already claims the title as the largest fireworks display in the Midwest, and organizers say it will be even bigger and better this year. Crews began loading hundreds of fireworks shells into launch tubes Tuesday morning. The show will be launched from a fenced-off area behind Veterans Memorial Auditorium.

Planners began choreographing this year’s display even before last year’s show had finished clearing from the downtown sky. Coordinator Earl Burke says it takes a full year to prepare the soundtrack, design the show and program the launch computers. Designers were making last-minute changes to the show as late as Monday night.

This year’s display will include “nautical shells” that Burke says will explode just above the surface of the Scioto River in a burst of light and color, reflecting on the water. He promises the show will be very different from the year before. “Our idea is to top what we did the year before,” he says. “So we want everybody to come down here and say, ‘Wow! I didn’t see that before.‘“

Pyrotechnico of NewCastle, PA, will be launching the fireworks. The company recently won a gold medal in an international fireworks competition, beating teams from China and France. Some of the displays that helped win the competition appear in Red, White and Boom.

The show launches from three levels: the roof of Vets Memorial, the loading dock and the riverfront. Burke says it creates a 3D effect and helps highlight the downtown buildings. Burke says the best place to watch the display is in downtown Columbus because the outlying areas will only see the high, sky displays; they will miss the lower- and ground-level explosions.