SPOKANE, Wash. — The city of Spokane is ringing in 2024 in style, with the New Year's Eve celebration and annual firework show coming to Riverfront Park on Sunday night. A big celebration like this, however, takes a bit of preparation.
Spokane's annual firework show is a New Year's Eve tradition, but the work that goes into setting up the show is an all-day event.
The sounds of crackling and sights of bright flashes in the Spokane sky are quite familiar on New Year's Eve, but there's more to the pretty show than what meets the eye.
"I've been doing this at the clock tower as long as they've been doing the New Year's Eve show downtown," said Rich Vaughan, the pyrotechnic who designs the Riverfront Park fireworks show. "I started designing this show probably two months ago, and then the last week I figured out the choreography of what we're going to do and how we're gonna do it."
The city spends about $15,000 dollars a year for the New Year's Eve fireworks show. Vaughan designs a new show each year. The team starts setting up the fireworks at 8:30 on the morning of the show. They take all day to set it up.
This year, more than 900 shots will light up the night sky. Pyrotechnicians manually put each firework into single canisters that are remotely set off.
"The show will be fired with a wireless remote firing system which makes it pretty unique because you can just stand back and push buttons to fire the show," Vaughan said.
The display lasts only 10 minutes, but it's the crowds that keep Vaughan coming back year after year.
"They're here because they love doing it, and that's pretty much what it is," he said. "Listening to the crowd when you're done shooting makes it worthwhile."
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