Featured Entertainment Stories
Jul 3, 2009 6:19 pm US/Central
Fans, Workers Prepare Early For Fireworks Display
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (WCCO) ―
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The Bloomington show draws the Najjar family back every year, though they live in Mendota Heights. They arrived at the park hours ahead of time, saving space for more than 30 relatives and friends.
CBS
In the morning before Bloomington's Fourth of July celebration Friday, the experts were hard at work putting together the show that so many people would enjoy later that evening.
They weren't the only ones putting so much effort into relaxation. Fans were already staking out the best spots at Bloomington's Normandale Lake Park hours before the show.
And, from the fireworks guys to the people who stake out their turf early... a lot of people put a lot of effort into relaxing.
Preparations began at about 10 a.m., and the show itself may not begin until 10 p.m.
Some of the launch tubes are so large they have to be secured in sand inside a steel dumpster. The 22-minute show will involve about 1,500 separate shells.
"The audience expects certain things when they come to see a fireworks display, they expect to see things going along, click-click-click, and that's how we script a show. So we want make sure we have something up in that sky almost each and every second," explained Ed Vanasek with RES Specialty Pyrotechnics.
The Bloomington show draws the Najjar family back every year, though they live in Mendota Heights. They arrived at the park hours ahead of time, saving space for more than 30 relatives and friends.
"Trying to beat the rush," laughed 12-year-old Dominic Najjar.
"The togetherness of everybody here on the hill, it's wonderful. And Bloomington? The best," said Sue Najjar.
Of course the party features music, so people were also setting up for that. There's lots of food, which meant getting the green peppers and onions ready to go. Children even get to bounce in big inflatable play areas, but the highlight of the holiday is always the fireworks.
"One cool thing about this venue is the fact that we're able to launch the 10-inch firework shells, which you can't do very many places in the metropolitan area, so we're still able to, with the support of the citizens of Bloomington through their donations, launch those big fireworks and continue this tradition," said Reed Erickson with the City of Bloomington.
The city of Bloomington figures 10,000 people will come to the park to see the show, while another 30,000 will see the sky light up from many other places, including their own back yards.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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