Today’s Red, Hot & Boom
Workers use high-tech process to design today’s colorful, loud show
fireworks show in Altamonte Springs got its start with a creative digital design.
ALTAMONTE SPRINGS — A handful of workers labored on a barge Sunday moored at the waterfront of Cranes Roost Park, making final preparations for the annual Red, Hot & Boom celebration.
Come today, about 200,000 are expected to flood the park for the area’s largest Independence Day bashes, capped off by a massive fireworks show of 15,000 explosives.
The city contracted the show out to Pyro Shows Inc., a Texas-based company launching 450 shows between Friday and Tuesday across the country.
“Every single show is designed for that show and that venue,” said Mike Walden, vice president of the company that planned 1,600 shows last year.
Altamonte Springs is among municipalities throughout the country that continues to invest in high-tech fireworks shows as hallmarks of their Independence Day celebrations.
In Central Florida, Red, Hot & Boom is one of the first patriotic parties scheduled, kicking off at 4 p.m. today.
The city ponied up $50,000 for the 25-minute show.
“That’s a small price to pay for such a significant community event,” said City Manager Frank Martz. “We get praise from people who are stunned at how many people we fit in the basin and get everybody out safely.”
Other events today include Mount Dora’s Freedom on the Waterfront, which features a 21-minute fireworks show after sundown. City spokeswoman Lisa McDonald said the show runs the city $20,000, and it expects about 35,000 at Elizabeth Evans Park.
Tuesday, the City of Orlando plans to launch its explosive show at 9:10 p.m. at Lake Eola Park. More than 100,000 people are expected at the park for the show that costs $35,000 city spokeswoman Cassandra Lafser said.
Work on the Red, Hot & Boom show began in January on a blank computer screen, Walden said.
Modern fireworks displays are largely digital, with designers using 3-dimensional planning software to perfect sequences, colors and timing.
“It allows the designer when he’s creating the scene … to visually see it as he’s doing it,” Walden said of the technology.
“When you’re doing a pattern scene and [shooting] multiple shells along with it, it allows him to see for instance a smiley face over the top [and] what’s underneath it to make sure they’re not bleeding over each other.”
After nightfall today, the months of work will be put on display.
Crews will set off the pyrotechnics from about four locations throughout the park, with willows, spirals and other fireworks dancing and darting through the night sky.
The shells, themselves, are more advanced than in past years.
Manufacturers have concocted the chemicals in such a way that the explosives have patterned movement and eruptions, Walden said.
One shell, scripted for Red, Hot & Boom, is called a ghost shell, which meanders through the sky in a manner that looks like it’s controlled by a dimmer, Walden said.
“If you know what you’re looking at … they’re doing multiple things,” Walden said. “It’s a fireworks shell that will go up and light on one side and make a wave across, dart behind itself and come back through.”
New to Altamonte Springs from Charlotte, N.C., gospel singer Nikki Williams and her four children were getting the lay of the land at Cranes Roost Park Sunday.
They planned to come back today so the kids could play in bounce houses and take in the fireworks at their first Fourth of July celebration here in Central Florida.
Her daughter, Katie, 8, loves vibrant pink fireworks and others that spell words.
“It’d be cool if it said ‘4th of July in the air,’ ” she said.
Her mother added, “We’ll be ready for it tomorrow.”