Seattle Fourth of July fireworks ‘a go’; will stay on Lake Union

| Holidays | West Seattle news

(July 4, 2012, photo by Jamie Kinney – Lake Union fireworks as seen from Admiral Way Bridge)
10:29 AM: Just announced at City Hall – 4th of July fireworks are definitely ‘a go’ – and they’re staying on Lake Union. So says the Metropolitan Seattle Chamber of Commerce, making the announcement in conjunction with Mayor McGinn, Seafair, and others, including contributions from Microsoft and Amazon. You can watch live here. The show will change fireworks providers (Western Display is the new one) and TV-broadcast partners (now it’s KIRO 7), and those speaking at the briefing say this is a multi-year commitment, so you won’t hear “we might not have fireworks” again next year.

ADDED 10:45 AM: Of note, since West Seattle hosts its share of citywide-draw events (Seafair Pirates Landing, for example) – in response to a question, the mayor says they’re expecting stepped-up security at “probably all our events” this summer, not just the fireworks, in the wake of Boston. So you might see explosives-detecting dogs (which are already fixtures at ferry docks), for example. Also – the briefing (linked in the first part of the update) is over now.

panda April 23, 2013 (10:45 am)

Woohoo!! …and I bet it will be done at a fraction of the cost of previous years!

WSB April 23, 2013 (10:53 am)

They didn’t have a specific budget number handy but did say it was expected to cost less, though they insisted the fireworks would be no less spectacular … TR

Diane April 23, 2013 (12:25 pm)

so wonder if that whole “no fireworks this year” charade was all about dumping One Reel

WSB April 23, 2013 (1:36 pm)

The mayor said during the briefing that One Reel was a production firm, not a fundraising firm, so having to drum up the sponsorships was not a good match for it. Maybe it’s just because of my background, but I thought the broadcast change from 5 to 7 was most interesting! I produced fireworks broadcasts at 13 for a few years – we had rights to the small but live-orchestra-accompanied show in Bellevue, plus we sent cameras out to a few shows, including one on the roof of the building to cut to the Lake Union fireworks (right across the street!) from time to time.

Is It Me April 23, 2013 (12:55 pm)

Sounds like they’re ditching the very pretty high-tech fancy fireworks for more of a generic display. I’m sure most folks won’t care. Back when we had two displays, the “4th of Jul-Ivers” was the big traditional display and Lake Union was always the more ‘artistic’ funky display. Sounds like something in between now.

Grant April 23, 2013 (1:00 pm)

All the global warming and environmental activists cheering for fireworks should check themselves:

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/are-fireworks-bad-for-the-environment

Irukandji April 23, 2013 (1:21 pm)

Ugh. Time to schedule to cough it up for an off-duty officer to patrol the ‘hood.

datamuse April 23, 2013 (1:47 pm)

I worked for One Reel, ages ago. While they have a sponsorship team and do some fundraising, as WSB says their expertise is on the production side. Family Fourth was almost entirely sponsored by WaMu, so there’s something else you can blame on the subprime mortgage crisis.

west seattle steve April 23, 2013 (4:20 pm)

I love the Lake Union fireworks. When I first saw them they were the most beautiful Pyro show I’d ever seen. Other shows have become more artistic and elaborate over the years, so the Lake Union show didn’t stand out as much recently as they did years ago.

About 15 years ago, I worked on the production crew for One Reel. The japanese fireworks they used are very labor intensive. Everything was set by hand and fired from mortars packed in sand. Each volley had a box of mortars dedicated to it with different size tubes mixed in each box. There was a crew of 10 working for a week before the show to set it up. Most fireworks use prefab launchers and only take a couple days to set-up.

datamuse April 23, 2013 (5:04 pm)

Steve, I got to visit the barge once, when they had the sand and mortars set up but hadn’t loaded them yet. Pretty cool.

Jim April 23, 2013 (5:15 pm)

Since KIRO has exclusive rights to Seafair events I suspect Seafair packaged it with that change in mind. KING TV always covered Seafair events for many years with fantastic coverage too. They in turn made an in kind donation to Seafair each year. But when Seafair put TV rights up for bid KING refused to even submit a bid. The end result was Seafair doubled their money but got half the coverage from KIRO. Then KING put all their efforts and money into Winterfest instead.

WSB April 23, 2013 (5:45 pm)

Good point – forgot about the KIRO/Seafair TV connection as part of the equation. Eventually that all won’t matter as the old-school world of “broadcast” TV falls away, but it’ll be a few years!