World-class fireworks firm staging July 4 show

If you liked the fireworks at the Beijing Olympics, you're going to love the July 4 show planned for the Eastern Prom.

M. Philip Butler, a producer at the New York-based Fireworks by Grucci company that created the Beijing pyrotechnics, guarantees it.

"Between what Grucci displays and what you saw last year in Portland, there will be a difference like a space-ship landing in front of you, and that we say from experience," Butler said Tuesday.

Portland will spend $50,000 on this year's show, $30,000 of which is set aside for fireworks. The remaining $20,000 will be spent on "staff time," which includes on-site emergency officials, extra police and pre-event preparations. More than 50,000 people citywide are expected to watch the event, which takes place on a Saturday for the first time since 1998.

Admission, as always, is free.

"This is the largest community event have in the city, where people from East Deering to the West End all come and congregate in one area to be part of something," city spokesperson Nicole Clegg said. The fireworks show also draws thousands of people each year from surrounding communities and can be seen for miles in any direction.

If past Grucci shows are any indication, everyone who turns out this Saturday will be in for a treat. Many of the world's milestones over the past 30 years have been marked by Grucci, including the American Bicentennial celebration in Boston, the Brooklyn Bridge centennial in 1983, every U.S. presidential inauguration since Ronald Reagan, and Olympics in Athens, Salt Lake City, Beijing, and others.

Butler said variety and choreography sets their shows apart from standard "Hometown U.S.A." fireworks displays.

"Variety means you don't shoot the same inventory more that once in given show," he said. "In a typical traditional show, you will see same thing displayed time after time, and repeated. Five minutes into the show, it gets boringly routine; that will never happen with us."

The company will stage 87 shows "from Portland to Pearl Harbor" this July 4, Butler said, and they were booked up eight months in advance, with a waiting list of 20 or more cities.

Although Grucci was selected to host the fireworks show after being the low bidder in a competitive process, they were available for the Portland job only after a private show in Northeast Harbor canceled. Butler said a "wealthy individual" who hosts annual shows in the coastal Maine town was affiliated with Wall Street and opted out of the event because of "perceptions."

After 12 years, the private show became the de facto event for the whole town. Most Northeast Harbor residents still don't know the show is canceled, he said.

Northeast Harbor's loss, however, became Portland's gain. In the roughly 20-minute show, Butler said Portlanders for the first time will see the Grucci's signature "Gold-Split Comet," which "breaks, opens, then breaks again" to create a "golden Milky Way effect" in the sky.

And like some recent shows, Butler insists the Grand Finale will not disappoint. Three distinct tiers of "saturation" fireworks, including those that travel up to 700-feet into the air, will be unleashed in a way that that "even a naive person in the audience will recognize the display sequence."

"The Grucci Grand Finale is very important to us," he said. "It's what people remember last that makes the last impression. Our Grand Finale is very robust."

Along with the show, several food and souvenirs vendors will set up along the Eastern Prom.

Motor vehicle traffic on much of Munjoy Hill will be affected starting early on July 4.

From 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., the Eastern Promenade from Vesper to Washington Avenue will be closed, as will Fort Allen Park and Walnut Street from the Eastern Promenade to Washington. Both sides of Cutter and Mountfort Street will be closed as well.

The East End Trail from Portland Water District to Cutter Street near the East End Beach will also be closed. 

Despite attempts at finding a corporate sponsor for the fireworks event, the city alone is footing the $50,000 bill for the show.