The Business of Fireworks

Fourth of July at Sunset Park in Sturgeon Bay. Photo by Rachel Lukas.

Fireworks are an iconic part of celebrating the Fourth of July, and there are plenty of displays to choose from in Door County. From Washington Island to Maplewood, the sound of celebration will be heard across the county due to the planning of local fireworks professionals. 

Several area shows are put on by Spielbauer Fireworks in Green Bay. Stephen Norby of Spielbauer said the company creates and coordinates fireworks shows in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan and that 90% of its business happens this upcoming week with the help of a crew in Green Bay and operators who are local to where the shows take place. 

Norby creates the displays himself, and said he starts planning by considering the budget and show location, as well as previous shows. Budget is important, he said, because the cost to put on a fireworks display has dramatically increased during the past few years due to insurance costs doubling and shipping costs tripling. 

Norby said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, shipping a container of fireworks cost around $17,000, but that cost has since increased to up to $30,000. He also said that as operators age out of the profession, younger people aren’t as interested in it or don’t want to work on the Fourth of July. The whole situation has hurt some of Spielberg’s competitors. 

“A lot of smaller companies have just gone out of business, and we’ve turned down people,” Norby said. 

Spielberg’s relationships go way back, so the company tries not to cut any shows in communities where it has done work in the past, Norby said. 

“We’re a third-generation company, and a lot of these cities we’ve been shooting for 76 years,” he said. “We have a history with a lot of our customers.” 

Location is also important when creating a fireworks show. Norby said that Egg Harbor’s show is shot from the beach, and the fireworks in Fish Creek, Gills Rock and Baileys Harbor are shot from the water, in a fishing boat (in Gills Rock) or barge (Fish Creek). 

Sister Bay’s fireworks are also shot from a barge, said Dave Lienau, who wears many hats, including manager of the Sister Bay Marina and chair of the Door County Board of Supervisors. He’s also the display coordinator for Sister Bay’s fireworks, designing and orchestrating a few shows a year, including the one during Sister Bay’s Freedom Fest on July 8. 

One of Lienau’s friends helps to supply and store Sister Bay’s fireworks in Maplewood until a few days before the show, Lienau said. Then, based on the supply coming from Maplewood, Lienau designs the display. 

“Between loading them and wiring them all,” he said, “is when I come up with the show body – what we’re gonna do and how we’re gonna do it – because I now know what we have and how we’ve loaded it.”

Lienau said he’s licensed through the Pyrotechnic Guild International as a display operator and that marina employees often assist with the displays under his direction. Six to eight people help him operate the show. 

“It’s just a lot of fun blowing stuff up,” Lienau said. “It’s great fun and camaraderie to have several people together doing this. It’s great to design it and get it all figured out, lay out the show and how it’s all going to work.” 

Sister Bay’s Freedom Fest fireworks are one of Lienau’s biggest shows of the year, and Norby said Spielbauer’s biggest Door County shows are in Egg Harbor and Baileys Harbor, each with about 10 operators. By comparison, Fish Creek has three.

“It’s overall a smaller show, but it’s probably a better show,” Norby said. 

He said most of the fireworks operators he works with have been shooting shows for years, and these displays rely heavily on whether a community has someone who’s willing to operate the fireworks.

“This week people just start showing up to work and loading trucks, unloading trucks and getting ready for the shows,” Norby said. “Most of the time, the same people have shot the same show for the last 10 years.” 

He added that it takes a special person to operate fireworks. 

“To be perfectly honest,” Norby said, “fireworks people are a different breed of people.”