Sam Morris/Las Vegas News Bureau
Technicians from Fireworks by Grucci prepare mortars during fireworks setup on the roof of Planet Hollywood in preparations for New Year’s Eve’s “America’s Party 2019” Friday, December 28, 2018.
Thursday, Dec. 30, 2021 | 8 p.m.
A pyrotechnician crouching on the roof of Planet Hollywood holds out a shell marked 13-17, Lemon Peony. It weighs about three pounds, charge included, and looks like an orange wrapped in a paper bag.
When blasted high into the night sky Friday from its mortar, it will give an aerial effect of yellow points of light in a spherical ball, a shape that brings to mind a peony flower.
It will glitter for a few seconds of the eight-minute fireworks show that will light up the Strip for the annual New Year’s extravaganza, and though its existence will be ephemeral, it will also be precisely timed and the result of days of work.
This technician, and more than 60 like him, spent Thursday powering through the setup for the fireworks display that is the centerpiece of America’s Party, as Las Vegas’ New Year festival is known. They’ve been going all week and will pick up again Friday.
That’s because it takes a crew of 63, spread out over eight Strip properties, five days to prepare for the symphony of flashes, sparkles, twinkles and booms that make up the show, and another to tear it down.
After taking last year off during the worst of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, America’s Party is set to burst from MGM Grand to the Strat at the stroke of midnight, after the countdown has crawled up the Strat tower and the traditional strains of "Auld Lang Syne" have played.
Fireworks by Grucci is again producing the show, in partnership with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and Las Vegas Events. The New York-based company has provided the pyro expertise for 17 out of the last 21 years in Vegas. This year’s theme is “Deuces Wild.”
Show producer Scott Cooper, who is also director of business development for Fireworks by Grucci, said the fireworks shells by themselves fill a tractor trailer. Additional equipment is stored at the company’s Henderson facility. Grucci puts on shows around the world, but has such a close relationship with Vegas that it has a headquarters here.
The shells, three inches in diameter, don’t look like much right now, set and wired in rows. But these are smart fireworks, with a total of 11,5000 electrical charges that have been programmed to launch in time with music.
The eclectic soundtrack includes tracks by Aerosmith, Taylor Swift, Celine Dion, Pitbull, KC and The Sunshine Band, The Weeknd, Diana Ross and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. The animated effects include “swimming” stars, Saturn shapes that change colors, hearts, happy faces and peace signs, along with the usual starbursts, waterfalls and criss-crossing comets.
From north to south, shells will fire from MGM Grand, Aria, Planet Hollywood, Caesars Palace, Treasure Island (TI), the Venetian, Resorts World and the Strat.
John Pacini, the chief pyrotechnician at the Planet Hollywood site, has been in pyrotechnics for 17 years, but he said he’d still have the butterflies at 11:59 p.m.
“It doesn’t matter how many shows you do, you definitely get a knot in your stomach,” he said.
Then the first shell sails into the air, and euphoria kicks in, he added.
The work is far from over after the show’s eight minutes are up. Pacini said the crew waits for the equipment to cool down, then they check the mortars for any unexploded product and commence cleanup. They won’t begin hauling heavy equipment downstairs until about 9 a.m., late enough to not unduly disturb penthouse guests just below their work surface.
With little downtime, Grucci begins planning next year’s show, Cooper said.
“The hardest part of the job is to top the year that was done prior,” he said.
