Photograph by Mike DeFilippo
Most St. Louisans don’t know John Weiter, but they’re familiar with his work. He and his team put the exclamation mark on the last game at the old Busch, the first in the new stadium, and Lumière Place’s grand opening. They continue to delight Cards fans. And they light up the night sky each Fourth of July, including this year’s Fair Saint Louis, July 3 and 4. But for the founder and president of Gateway Fireworks Displays, it’s all part of the family business—one that requires 400-plus hours of setup, 10,000 feet of wire, and more than 13,000 shells. For Weiter, who went from serving in the St. Louis Police Department for 20 years to entertaining at the World Series, it’s been quite a show.
In His Words…
- There’s no manual for setting up a show. You’ve gotta be able to figure out a way to do it and do it well. We build hundreds of mortar racks at our shop to keep up with our needs.
- The soundtrack is where it all begins. The choreographer uses a program to arrange, in his mind’s eye, how he’d like the show to be orchestrated.
- We plan the fireworks to go along with the lyrics. So for instance, during “Over the Rainbow,” as the singer is describing the rainbow’s colors, we’re creating them. Advanced software helps us time it so that each shell is exploding at exactly the right time.
- It’s one thing to create a fruit salad of color in the sky, and it’s another to make the crowd go “ooh” and “ahh” because each burst hits right on that particular note with a well-choreagraphed display.
- We have a three-ring binder that lists the exact break times, down to a fraction of a second. I could look down at my watch and tell you what’s going off in the sky without even looking up.
- We really have to rely on the products, so we only use the best—the most consistent shells, the most vibrant colors.
- Everybody working out there is family, so we take every safety precaution. We’ve been doing this 10 years, and we haven’t had one reportable accident, knock on wood.
- During the shows, I’ll be in the crowd and hear the reactions. The things that get the biggest reactions, you’ll likely see those again.
- We start working on next year’s show within days of finishing this year’s.
