John Posey (left) and Chris Henderson stack fiberglass launch tubes at Eastside Boat Landing in Augusta July 4, 2013. Before the pandemic, July 4th brought in about $490,000 in display deals over the weekend. This year, he said, it will take in about $850,000. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file
FARMINGDALE – Every mile Steve Marson drives this weekend brings him closer to the greatest 4th of July weekend ever.
“We’re just breaking up. We have 110 displays in six states this weekend,” Marson said Thursday. At 4:15 p.m., he was in his office at Central Maine Pyrotechnics, where he is President, for the first time that day.
Summers are a busy time for Central Maine Pyrotechnics, but the July 4th holiday, with its big fireworks display, is poised to be the busiest holiday ever for the company.
Central Maine Pyrotechnics has booked shows throughout central Maine and New England this holiday weekend, including two showings in Augusta Monday night — one from the former Statler mill site for spectators in Mill Park and one from the boat launch on the east side of the Kennebec River for spectators in Waterfront Park in celebration of Old Fort Western’s 100th anniversary.
This is a complete reversal from two years ago when Marson saw $1.5 million in the fireworks business disappear as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the cancellation of public gatherings across New England and across the country to celebrate the to prevent spread of the virus.
“We’ve added a number of new deals out of the states,” he said. “We’ve recorded a lot of shows in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. A lot of people in the industry are getting older now and there are fewer technicians available.”
Before the pandemic, July 4th brought in about $490,000 in display deals over the weekend. This year, he said, it will take in about $850,000.
As fireworks season approaches, the American Pyrotechnics Association has issued a cautionary statement about the challenges this fireworks season presents. Like any other industry, the fireworks business experiences higher costs for products, transportation and shipping, labor and insurance, which push up costs by about 35%.
These market conditions have not stopped organizations in this region from ordering fireworks shows and asking for bigger ones.
In Monmouth, Dan Roy, chairman of the committee that hosts the annual beach party at the town’s beach on Cochnewagon Lake, said the committee had increased the fireworks budget this year for a slightly larger show.
“We always call in the water cannons,” Roy said. “You shoot up and go into the water, and a few seconds later it explodes over the surface of the water.”
Marson acknowledges that while the displays are bigger this year and he’s making more of them, these market conditions aren’t necessarily making him more money. In cases where customers have contracts for three years, he usually keeps the agreed rates or slightly increases the price. But a show that cost $3,500 a few years ago costs $5,000 now.
For the past two weeks, he and his staff have been working from 6am to midnight to complete all the prep work for designing pyrotechnic displays and setting up the required fireworks.
And because he’s lost some crews, he’ll be doing shows himself for the first time in five years. He was en route to New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Portland. But, he said, he has a lot of apprentices training and working towards getting their future show licenses.
“We turn down shows because we don’t have enough technicians,” he said.
Marson, who began learning the fireworks business when he was 16, also owns and operates Pyro City Maine Fireworks Stores statewide. The retail stores that have been open during the pandemic helped balance business as more people bought fireworks for their own displays, boosting that business by about 30%.
This year has seen delivery delays on both sides of the company as containers of fireworks that were expected a month ago turned up last week. The last container of display grenades arrived on June 24 and the fourth container of firecrackers for the fireworks shops was due to arrive on Saturday.
“The good thing is that we got everything we ordered,” he said. “It’s been a busy two weeks.”
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