Behind the Show

By definition, fireworks are a spectacle, something people go to watch and enjoy. But as human as we all are, we tend to overlook those behind the flares of bright light and, in the case of the Baileys Harbor fireworks, the ones who originally started shooting them off for their love of it – not for money.

In 1995, Kevin Peil decided the Baileys Harbor Fireworks show needed an upgrade. He wanted a show people would come from miles around to see.

Ardyn Smith, the choreographer of the Baileys Harbor Fireworks for the last 15 years, holds a shell – one of nearly 1,000 that will be lit from Anclam Beach on the night of July 4th.

As fate would have it, he ran into a friend in Milwaukee who used to live in New Orleans, La. His friend helped put on a fireworks show at the World’s Fair and reached out to his contacts in New Orleans.

“It was just a group of friends in New Orleans who did fireworks in their backyard,” Peil said.

The group agreed to put on the show in Baileys Harbor that year. Peil had only one expectation: to make an improvement.

For the first few years they did the show, the New Orleans crew paid their own way to Door County with the Baileys Harbor Business Association covering the cost of the fireworks. This year, the show will cost $10,000, and the crew has had their lodging and airfare covered for some years now.

Eight to ten guys put the show on at Anclam Park each year, with Ardyn Smith planning the whole shebang. The group is known as Ground Zero Pyrotechnics, and the July 4 show in Baileys Harbor is their only show of the year.

The crew arrives from New Orleans a few days before July 4 to set up and look over the equipment. Their first day is spent assessing the equipment and catching up. They barbecue and chat about the past year before things get intense on day two when they load nearly 1,000 shells for the show.

The day of July 4, most of the men go to the parade in Baileys Harbor before heading to Anclam Park to set up for the show. The fireworks are loaded into a semi-trailer and transported to the park.

Shells fire from the pier at the Anclam Park jetty.

That routine has stayed the same for the 16 years they’ve handled the show, though Peil says they’ve gotten faster at setting up and cleaning up since those first years.

Now the show is a combination of hand lit and electronically lit fireworks, but when the show first started, the group experimented.

“One year we had swim barges with platforms on them, and we’d shoot part of the show from there because at that point most of the show was hand lit,” Smith said. “We’d shoot from the barge so we could re-load.”

Another year fireworks shot off from six or seven remote sites around the harbor. The show looked like a volley of fireworks over the water, Peil said.

While some of the shells are lit by hand, large sequences of the show are electronically fired. The crew from Ground Zero Pyrotechnics takes multiple days to set up to the show, ensuring safety and a spectacular display.

Despite the visual appeal of the volley, the remote sites required too much work.

“It was a tactical nightmare,” Peil said. “To do that too many times is pushing the envelope.”

Over the past 15 years, no one has gotten injured while setting up for the show or during it, although both men said the group has been lucky.

“We’ve had some kind of close calls, but nobody’s ever gotten hurt,” Smith said. “With fireworks you always have some reasonable amount of malfunction.”

Two of the men on the crew from Ground Zero Pyrotechnics admire their work.

To keep things as safe as possible, one team member acts as the safety officer, ensuring the equipment is safe for use and set up goes smoothly. Two others observe during the show, watching for anything on the ground that could catch fire or tubes with loaded shells that get knocked over.

With the combination of hand lighting and electronic lighting, Smith said the crew choreographs certain parts and improvises the rest with the hand lights.

“What we try to do is set up an opening that’s all electronically fired, then maybe a couple different sequences in the middle of the show and the finale,” Smith said. “Those are all choreographed, but the rest is open.”

Smith has enjoyed lighting off fireworks since he was young, when his father would buy $100 worth of firecrackers for him to light on July 4. Now, he shares his love of fireworks with the residents and visitors of Baileys Harbor each year in a bit more advanced show.

Smith, who works as the vice president of a commercial drywall contracting company in New Orleans, said he still gets nervous on the day of the show.

“You want everything to go right, and you’re nervous because you put a lot of work into it and you want a good, safe show,” he said.

Peil echoed Smith’s remarks and said that while there is tension, his favorite part of the show is watching the families on the beach before the show starts.

“I like seeing all the kids and families…lining up on the beach playing with their little fireworks,” he said. “The sounds of the crowd is great, too – you can hear the crowd when you shoot certain fireworks.”

Watch for Smith, Peil and the rest of the Ground Zero Pyrotechnics group at this year’s show, which will take place at dusk on July 4.