BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE FOR THE FIREWORKS
Spectators like extra space in mall parking lot, family atmosphere
Six-year-old Alejandra Rodelas of Santa Fe watches the July Fourth fireworks show while perched atop playground equipment at Villa Linda Park on Tuesday night. This marked the first year the fireworks show was held at the Santa Fe Place mall, and families and spectators flooded into the park next door early in the evening.
Biker vests and star-spangled dresses, blue Corvettes and duct tape bayonets, this year’s city fireworks show, hosted by the Kiwanis Club at Santa Fe Place Mall, had it all.
The fireworks show got off to a late start because organizers could not figure out how to turn off the parking lot lights. Scheduled to start at about 9 p.m., the show proceeded after the lights got turned off about 9:50 p.m.
As early as 5 p.m., the small playground at Villa Linda Park next to the mall was crowded with children playing together in advance of the show. Their parents set up folding chairs around the area, keeping an eye on their kids and mingling with one another.
An area in the park’s large field drew dancers and spectators on picnic blankets, drawn in by the sound of local bands.
“We wanted this to be a community event,” said Ray Sandoval, event organizer with the Kiwanis Club. “We want people to come together, look each other in the eye, be friendly and wish the country a happy birthday.”
In past years, the city’s fireworks were launched from Ivan Head Stadium at Santa Fe High School, with pre-show festivities at Ragle Park. But after the Santa Fe Boys & Girls Club pulled out of hosting the event this spring,
Zozobra organizers the Kiwanis Club stepped in to take the event and moved it to the mall off of Rodeo Road.
Sandoval said the new venue revolves mostly around parking. In past years, spectators blocked driveways and crowded neighborhoods around Ragle Park to watch the show.
The mall, by comparison, has roughly 3,000 parking spots available for the event, Sandoval told the City Council earlier this year.
Before the event, Sandoval had said the Kiwanis Club would discourage tailgating in the parking lot, in an effort to draw people into the park area. But hours before the fireworks show, tailgaters had already staked out their spots, and set up folding chairs under awnings. People tossed footballs and played cornhole and listened to music from their own cars.
Cindy Benavidez, camped out under a tent in the parking lot with her family, thought the parking lot was a huge draw of this year’s event. In past years, people who came late to Ragle had to walk a long way to the park, she said. She prefers getting to stay near her car, and still mingle with her neighbors.
“You can reach out and join in and ask ‘Hey, do you want any watermelon?’ ” Benavidez said. “You can meet a lot of people next to you.”
As the evening wore on, the mall parking lot grew progressively more crowded, and eventually reached capacity about an hour before the scheduled start of the show.
Enormous lines accumulated for rice bowls and tacos at local food trucks and plenty of people opted to hang out in the beer garden featuring pours from the Santa Fe Brewing Co.
Among the polished signage of local business in the tent area, a small wooden structure with a handpainted sign beckoned young crowds.
“American Revolutionary Puppet Show,” it read.
The man behind it, 25-year-old Christian Porter, was dressed in the blue coat of an American Revolutionary soldier, his outfit complete with a musket made of duct tape and wood.
Porter walked his young audience through the battles of the war using felt-puppets handmade by his mother, Jodi McGinnis Porter, who is a member of the Kiwanis Club.
This is the second year that Porter, who has autism, has hosted the show on the Fourth of July.
“I got inspired from a show called Turn: Washington’s Spies where I saw this puppet show and it gave me the idea to do it,” Porter said. “It’s about the founding of our nation.”
While some came for the patriotism, others came for the aerial display.
Monica Rael loves fireworks. In the past, her family has sometimes gone to Los Alamos to see the light show on the hill, but decided to stay local this year. They like that the new venue is easy to access, easy to leave afterward and that it had plenty of entertainment.
“The fact that we could come down and listen to the music beforehand is great,” she said.
To Rael’s delight, the new venue also meant the Kiwanis Club could increase the size of the fireworks, said Sandoval.
He helped choreograph the fireworks to the sounds of rock and jazz, and quotes from American idols like past presidents and Martin Luther King Jr.
“We really want to wow people,” Sandoval said. “It’s kind of shock and awe if you will.”
For pyro-lovers like Rael, “any show is a good show,” she said.