- Macy’s is putting on its 50th Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks this year.
- The event will be on NBC and Peacock starting at 8 p.m. E.T.
- The telecast also includes performances from Alexia Jayy, Noah Kahan, Post Malone, Bebe Rexha, Salt-N-Pepa, Shaboozey, and Blake Shelton.
The country is celebrating two huge milestones this year: Not only is this July Fourth the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, it’s also the 50th anniversary of the legendary Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks.
If there’s any year to go all-out, it’s this one. And it’s Macy’s Executive Producer Will Coss’s job to make sure the display is one to remember for the next half-century. “We are doing one of the most ambitious productions in our history,” Coss tells me in a phone call from an undisclosed New York City pier, where they’re doing a run-through and making final preparations.
“We have 85,000 shells and effects over three different locations: the Brooklyn Bridge, the East River, and the West Side,” he says. “We have a state-of-the-art laser light show that's going to be happening across the Brooklyn Bridge, to help to complement the fireworks’ 27 minutes of nonstop pyrotechnics. It’s going to be a fantastic event.”
The journey from a spark of an idea to a spark in the July night sky takes about a year, Coss says, and begins with the music. “The music is the foundational key and one of the differentiating factors for the Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks,” he says. “So we start with the music, first outlining the emotional journey we want to take our audience on.”
This year, they worked with Emmy- and Grammy-winning composer Jason Howland, who’s worked on productions like Shucked, The Great Gatsby, and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, on the soundtrack for the evening’s event. “The goal of this year's fireworks is to have those really uplifting moments, those patriotic moments, those really introspective moments, and then just some celebration where you're gonna tap your feet,” Coss says. “You're going to get up. You're going to want to dance a bit, and just celebrate with your friends, neighbors, and family.”
Once the music is set and the big moments are outlined, the team does computerized previsualizations to test how it will look. “Then we'll work with our pyrotechnic partners to start fine-tuning and adjusting,” Coss says. “We say, ‘Oh, it'd be really great if we had a multicolor effect here,’ or, ‘Let's pull it back down and just do some water-level effects for this moment.’”
The goal is to create a full picture. “Not everything needs to happen at 1,000 feet,” he says. “You want to be able to get all the way up, but you also want to have something that might be eyeline or midline. The various heights that give you the true dynamic nature of that visual art in the sky.”
Once the show is locked, a team of 75 pyrotechnic professionals hand-load the barges, putting the shells into the mortars and hand-wiring the firing systems before they sail off onto the New York City waterways in preparation for the big day. And while the firing system is now computerized, it still takes a person to trigger the show to begin.
This year, look for lots of impressive new effects, including a 1,600-foot pyrotechnic waterfall that will cascade down to the river. There will be red wolves, color-changing shells, interlocking rings, and lots of other fun surprises. “We have a new shell called the Morning Glory, which is this red, white, and blue shell that's going to go up almost 1,000 feet in the sky, and then have these blue stars and red stars,” Coss says. “Then it'll culminate in this really beautiful white crackle.”
And there will also be the fan-favorite “Golden Mile,” where the entire landscape, from the sky to the bridges to the barges, lights up in all gold. “It's an iconic moment,” Coss says.
Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks will air Saturday, July 4 (8 p.m.–10 p.m. ET/PT) on NBC and simulcast live on Peacock. For those planning to attend in person, visit macys.com/fireworks for updated information and viewing locations.
