Why Cities and Towns Pick Fireworks, Drones, or Both for Independence Day

By Nanette Holt

OCALA, Fla.—To boom or not to boom?

That is the question coordinators of big community events face nowadays in planning Independence Day festivities.

The tradition of shooting off booming fireworks annually to celebrate America’s birthday goes back as far as the nation itself.

Still, some celebration planners now prefer the newfangled buzz of twinkling drones darting through quiet skies to form intricate, animated shapes, such as a rotating Statue of Liberty, a soaring eagle with flapping wings, waving American flags, or a trio of saluting service members.

Many cities and towns have chosen in recent years to eschew explosions in favor of drones for an array of reasons.

On Independence Day in 2024, Ocala, Florida, presented a $71,000 drone show of nearly 10 minutes for its festivities, rather than opting for less-expensive fireworks.

The decision to offer the Patriotic Skies drone show came out of concern about how fireworks affect the environment, veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, and creatures terrified by the blasts, a news release explained.

The area, known for rolling hills dotted with horse farms, bills itself as the Horse Capital of the World. Horses startle easily and can become sick or injure themselves when stressed.

On July 2, the worry of fireworks danger was reignited after an explosion at a warehouse in Yolo County, a rural area in northern California.

A sudden barrage of blasts from fireworks stored there collapsed a building, caused a fire to spread to neighboring farm fields, and forced evacuations in the surrounding community, authorities said.

At the time of publication, at least seven people were still missing. Drones flown by emergency crews swooped over the area in the hopes of finding victims of the fireworks accident, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

But even drones aren’t without risk.

They can fall or take an unexpected flight path, causing accidents, according to numerous reports in a Federal Aviation Administration database.

And even though the flying devices usually only weigh a few pounds, they can do harm when tumbling from the sky.

That’s what worried Ocala city leaders.

Just a few days after they signed a contract for a greatly expanded $150,000 drone show for the next two Fourth of July celebrations, a terrible accident occurred not far away in Orlando, said Greg Davis, Ocala’s public information officer.

During a holiday drone show at Lake Eola, an out-of-control device left the planned formation, streaked across the sky, and sailed past the invisible “geofence” that should have contained it.

Ultimately, it plowed into the face and chest of a 7-year-old boy.

The device weighed about two pounds and was less than a foot square, according to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board. But the impact caused the child to need open-heart surgery.

The report documents problems the operator experienced while readying the drones for flight before the show.

“Video confirmed that the aircraft did not liftoff in uniform layers and as they illuminated and moved to their first frame of animation, they shifted position and altitude, which resulted in a collision with other aircraft and a loss of control,” an investigator wrote.

“After the collisions occurred, numerous aircraft could be seen falling from the sky and impacting the ground. One aircraft could be seen streaking towards the audience.”

The boundaries of the programmed geofence, meant to keep the drones in place, were too close to the audience, investigators wrote.

Eyes on the Skies

Far to the north, Joe Rozzi has followed details as they’ve emerged on the drone accident in Florida.

He’s part of a 127-year-0ld family business, Rozzi Fireworks, in Loveland, Ohio.

That makes him a fourth-generation fireworks guy, an expert in pyrotechnics through and through.

But when a theme park—already a client—wanted a way to tell the story of its 50-year history as part of a fireworks show, a light went on in Rozzi’s imagination. Drones!

So after brainstorming with friends, he added the propeller-driven flyers to the family’s offerings.

The drones’ allure is “the storytelling,” he said.

Programmed in advance to fly in complicated patterns, drones zoom around each other in a coordinated dance, lighting up and changing colors to make pictures in the sky.

“Think of each drone as a pixel, OK? And the more pixels you have, the more detail you could get,” Rozzi explained to The Epoch Times.

“So typical shows that we fly are most of the time around 200 drones. So you have 200 pixels to work with. But we’ve flown up to 370. And I’ve been involved in drone shows where there’s been up to 2000.”

Now, many of his top clients are adding drones, usually to the beginning of a show that culminates with fireworks.

With drones, he can put practically any shape in the sky with precision.

For the Cincinnati Reds, one of his regular clients, he can build a giant floating baseball player swinging a bat. He can put up a logo or a jersey.

“You can’t do that with fireworks. You can do it with drones.”

With drones, when it comes to what’s possible, the sky’s the limit.

Risky Business

Both drones and fireworks can be dangerous, Rozzi admits.

Drones, when working properly, stay within their invisible geofence, constructed and maintained by dozens of satellites and a base station that communicate with the drones during the show.

That constant communication is supposed to keep the drones flying in an invisible box, each following its individualized, pre-programmed pattern.

“Everything is designed within that box,” Rozzi said. “So it’s getting GPS coordinates, your latitude, longitude. And it doesn’t matter what drone it is. They don’t care. The show file—once it’s complete—gets loaded into every drone.

“Then, when you set them up for show, there’s a defined grid on the ground, and it’s usually about 60-feet-square. Each one of them is about a yard or a meter apart.”

A pre-flight process requires every drone to check in and orient within the grid. Then, the dance begins.

“When you turn them on, activate them, and activate the ground station, all of them locate themselves and basically say, ‘OK, I’m here.”

After lifting off in layers, the drones communicate with satellites and a common base station to triangulate where they need to be. They usually fly their patterns, straying from course by no more than about two centimeters, Rozzi said. And they’re always recalibrating.

The accident in Orlando that hurt the child mystifies him. Drones don’t just blow past a geofence, he said.

Of course, there’s always danger working with fireworks, he added.

“I mean, they’re explosive, they’re dangerous to handle, they’re dangerous to move, they’re dangerous to transport. They stay dangerous all the time.

“Once you unplug the drone and pull its battery out, it’s a piece of plastic.”

More Bang for the Buck

Show prices depend on the number of drones used or the number of fireworks shot into the air from various locations. But in general, celebrants get more bang for their buck with fireworks.

“I do a 30-minute show on the Ohio River from 54 positions. It’s almost $200,000. I can do a 30-minute show for a community, and it could be $40,000. So there’s a lot of variables involved in how we do a fireworks display for your basic city Fourth-of-July fireworks.”

Before cancelling their drone show, Ocala’s public-private partnership was planning to shell out $300,000 for two consecutive annual drone shows of about 20 minutes each.

The Rozzi family is happy to provide drones.

“But you wanna know the truth?” Joe Rozzi confessed about the first time he watched a drone show. “I thought, ‘These things are boring …’

“There was always talk that these are going to replace fireworks. I said, ‘I don’t see it.’ And I still don’t.

“If you talk to just drone companies, one or two out there, they‘ll tell you, ’Yeah, we’re going to replace fireworks in 10 years.’

“No, you’re not. I’ll tell you, fireworks will never go away.”

And even though he can sell both types of shows, ‘I would never follow a firework show with a drone show.”

Overall, drones do seem to be safe, he said. Though tracking down specifics with regulating authorities can be tricky.

The Federal Aviation Administration did not respond to a request for the number of incidents involving drones by publication time.

As of April 2025, there were more than 1 million drones registered with the federal agency.

Of those, 420,825 were commercial drones. Recreational flyers only need one registration for multiple drones, making the exact number of drones zipping across U.S. skies difficult to calculate.

Drone regulations are evolving rapidly as new technology develops.

Fireworks have been around for centuries, and each jurisdiction has its own regulations about when and where they can be fired into the skies.

It’s believed human passion for fireworks erupted in the second century B.C. in Liuyang, China, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association.

Early “firecrackers” fashioned from bamboo sticks that exploded when thrown into a fire were thought to ward off evil spirits.

Sometime between 600 and 900 A.D., a Chinese alchemist is said to have created the first “gunpowder” by mixing potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal. Poured into hollowed bamboo tubes, the black, flaky powder transformed into “fireworks,” the association says.

By the 1400s, fireworks were used in Europe for religious festivals and public entertainment.

Italians manufactured them for European rulers, who used the explosions to “enchant their subjects and illuminate their castles on important occasions,” according to the association.

America’s second president, John Adams, envisioned nighttime illuminations in the sky as the best way to celebrate Independence Day.

Writing to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776, Adams penned that the commemoration of the nation’s birth “ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations, from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Ka-Booming Economy

Julie Heckman is the executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association.

The organization represents manufacturers, importers, wholesalers, retailers, suppliers, and professional firework display companies, including those providing pyrotechnic special effects at rock concerts or big sporting events.

It’s a $2.2 billion industry, she said.

Many Americans find temporary jobs and annual entrepreneurial opportunities working with fireworks, Heckman told The Epoch Times.

“Lots of coaches and teachers get involved in retail stands,” she said. “You might have a football coach who’s got his two firework displays that he works as a firework technician every year.”

Particularly extravagant fireworks displays infuse local economies with cash.

Kentucky’s Thunder Over Louisville is one of the country’s largest fireworks displays. An economic study conducted by the Derby Festival calculated that it generates more than $56 million for the local economy.

A legendary fireworks display in San Diego generates “a $12 million footprint” in one day, according to a study there, Heckman said.

“People will camp out all day to get the best viewing site. If that changed and went with a drone show, people are not going to be booking those hotel rooms. They are not going to camp out all day, dine at the local restaurants, or shop at all the touristy places.

“They’re just not going to camp out for a drone show. They will do it for a fireworks show.”

Heckman isn’t anti-drone. Some drones even launch fireworks now while they’re flying, something the FAA just approved, she said.

“That will be exciting. I’ve not seen it yet, but I’m looking forward to it.”

But there’s nothing like the boom of fireworks that can be felt throughout the body.

And a fireworks show “brings the community together—that’s what it’s all about,” Heckman said. “There’s something really special about standing around with a bunch of strangers and everyone’s looking up at the sky together.”

“Drones are kind of the new, shiny thing, and they are a great enhancement to a firework show, or a great way to begin a firework show, to let people know, ‘Hey, something’s about to happen.’

“When you see a firework display, it is a multi-sensory experience. You see the colors. You hear the noise, the boom, if you will. If you’re close enough, you can feel that concussion in your chest, the vibration. And again, if you’re close enough, you’re going to smell the smoke.”

The City of Ocala received a lot of positive feedback last year about its Independence Day drone show.

“Like with anything, there’s going to be positive and negative,” Davis said.

“A lot of people said, ‘Wow, glad to be in Ocala. They’re doing different things. They’re being innovative. The light-up show was great!’

“Some people also said, ‘Man, I miss fireworks! Where’s the patriotic flavor? We’re a hamburger-hot dog kind of place!”

Rozzi admits that there’s something special about fireworks that his drones just can’t deliver.

“Simple answer,” he said. “People love fireworks.”

Natasha Holt and The Associated Press contributed to this report.