Preparations for the Liberty Festival’s fireworks show have been going on all week at Petrack Park as it is a several-day affair.
The 22-minute choreographed show, with the theme of “Standing Up for What’s Right,” which will consist of over 1,000 shells in the body of the show, and a “surprise” amount for the finale, is a fan favorite every year. The event is run by the father and son duo of John O’Brien, who’s been involved in the production for the past 20 years, and Eddie O’Brien, who’s been involved for the last 10 years in some facet.
This year, as in most, weather was the main culprit of issues during setup, as a series of thunderstorms this week put a small damper on the set up.
“The rain does actually put a delay on stuff, but we are on schedule as far as the show goes because we knew that we were going to have some monsoonal moisture coming in, so we thought we better start a little bit sooner,” Eddie O’Brien said. “They let us come on to the site one day earlier and that helped a lot.”
The racks of fireworks, which are comprised of rows of individual tubes with a shell inside each tube, are set up last, which takes around one night to complete.
“We have to individually wire each one of these (shells in a tube) into each cue,” Eddie O’Brien said.
Those tubes filled with shells will be choreographed with music to the show, which will guarantee an explosion of visual throughout the show, as opposed to hand-fired fireworks, which are tough to line up with music.
“The best part about a choreographed show is constantly filling up the sky,” Eddie O’Brien said. “Usually in hand fire like the last companies have done … there could be delays and that’s why you can’t do it to music, because you just can’t keep up.”
Altogether the show takes several days to set up, something that most people are surprised about.
“I have people ask me all the time how long it takes to set this up,” Eddie O’Brien said. “Sometimes we gotta set it up a week in advance … because it takes that long.”
This is opposed to a hand-fired show that takes most companies a day to set up.
Eddie O’Brien also said that a choreographed show gives those involved a bigger sense of pride because the shows are more interesting and take more work to produce.
There will be a broad spectrum of music used in the show, as they wanted to make sure all age groups will hear something they can relate to. From country to dance, to rock and roll, the show will run a full gamut of musical tastes.
John O’Brien encourages all that attend to bring some sort of radio, as the music will air on 95.1 KNYE Radio, so they are sure to be able to listen to the music as the fireworks shoot off.
“We appreciate Karen from KNYE radio coming forward to do the music, last year we had an issue with a PA system so some people couldn’t hear the music,” John O’Brien said. “Make sure you bring your radios, their walkman, whatever they got, sit back in that grass, poke your head up and enjoy the show.”
The Pahrump Town Board gives them a contract that explains the duration and budget of the show and other aspects of the event. The only thing they don’t tell them what to do is what goes into the show, that is all their doing.
Last year’s show saw a finale with a string going off every two seconds, so this year’s should be a bit more explosive.
“The finale is going to be 30 seconds of nothing but constant firepower, with a string going off less than every two seconds, which should be pretty crazy,” Eddie O’Brien said.
The work doesn’t stop with the O’Briens setting up the show, as there are other people who play big roles that don’t have anything to do with the firework show itself.
“Those other people that work behind the lines they’re our support team, security, without those people we couldn’t do our jobs,” John O’Brien said. “Hats off to all the guys that have helped us out.”