26 June 2009
U.S. Fireworks: A “Booming” Industry of Small Businesses
Despite soft economy and strict regulation, fireworks industry survives
Washington — From big cities like Washington to small towns like Stinking Creek, Tennessee (population 1,200), America’s Independence Day, celebrated each year on July 4, would not be complete without fireworks.
The country’s love of fireworks dates back to the American Revolution. John Adams, before being elected second president of the United States, wrote in July 1776 that America’s Declaration of Independence from England ought to be celebrated with “bonfires and illuminations [fireworks] from one end of the continent to the other, from this day forward forevermore.”
Fireworks are a $940-million-a-year industry in the United States. More than 130 companies produce professional-quality fireworks displays, and thousands of retailers, from Wal-Mart to tiny roadside stands, sell fireworks to the public in the weeks leading up to the Fourth of July.
The industry is made up of small businesses: Even “major” display companies average only 25 year-round employees. (Companies hire hundreds of temporary staffers to help set off their July Fourth displays.) Recently, regulations have driven some small companies out of business. Relatively bigger ones employ as many as 10 people just to handle regulatory compliance. The regulatory environment changed dramatically after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. “In 1969, when I got into this business, I could drive up and down the highway with eight or 10 boxes of fireworks in the bed of my pickup truck, and nobody cared,” said Lansden E. Hill Jr., president of Pyro Shows of LaFollette, Tennessee.
Now, it seems, everybody cares. A half dozen federal agencies, as well as state and local governments, tightly regulate shipment, storage, and handling of fireworks, requiring strict background checks and often multiple licenses for everyone who comes in contact with the explosives.
Another development — and a frustration, according to industry insiders — is the increasing difficulty in acquiring products from China, which ships fireworks from only two ports, Shanghai and the tiny port of Beihai. The Chinese government prohibited shipment of hazardous materials during the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and is expected to do the same during the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. In the past, American fireworks companies manufactured their own products, but today few can compete with China or countries like it, where labor costs are low. (Less than 10 percent of fireworks set off in America are produced here. Nearly 80 percent comes from China, and the rest, from Spain, Italy, Japan, Germany and France, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association.)
Then there is the weak economy. Although industry representatives maintain that fireworks are “recession resistant,” some communities cancelled this year’s July Fourth displays because of budget shortfalls. Pyro Spectaculars of California, which plans roughly 1,000 shows, and Pyro Shows of Tennessee, which plans roughly 150, both report drops of close to 5 percent in bookings. Small towns like Niceville, Florida, and Gallatin, Tennessee, will take a break from fireworks. Other towns will cut costs by shortening their shows by a few minutes (waiting longer to shoot off each shell is one adjustment that may not be obvious to onlookers).
Many companies — fourth- or fifth-generation family businesses established by immigrants from Italy and Portugal – take the slowdown in stride. Pyro Spectaculars has spanned five generations of the Souza family and survived the Great Depression, World War II, and times of living “day-to-day, show-to-show,” to become one of the largest fireworks companies in the country. Even in the lean times, “we were always the show people that everyone wanted to put on fireworks shows in the San Francisco Bay area,” said President Jim Souza, great-grandson of the company’s Portuguese founder.
Preparing for the July extravaganzas begins in the fall, but peaks with long days just before Independence Day. For the fireworks show on the National Mall in Washington, Pyro Shows will send an eight-person crew to Washington June 28. The crew will work 12-hour days for a week setting up the display, fire 3,500 shells with 6,350 kilograms of explosives during the 17-minute show July Fourth, and stay for two days afterward to check for misspent shells on the grounds, Hill said.
IN 2009, INDIVIDUALS HAVE MORE SPARK THAN TOWNS AND CITIES
Despite the tough regulatory climate and a sluggish economy, backyard pyrotechnics appear to be more popular than ever. Consumer sales of fireworks “have more than doubled in the past decade, and we think this is going to be another record-breaking year,” said Julie Heckman, of the American Pyrotechnics Association. “With people not traveling as much [because of the economy], more folks will celebrate with families and neighbors in their backyards.”
Thanks to the efforts of the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory — which has worked closely with Chinese manufacturers on production, testing, and labeling — fireworks available to the public are safer than ever, Heckman said. As a result, more states allow the sale and use of backyard fireworks.
One way or another, Americans will find a way to celebrate their independence, just as they have for more than 230 years.
