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A peek into what makes this North Texas fireworks family go boom!

The Fourth of July might be the biggest time for firework shows and displays, but for one North Texas pyrotechnic company it’s a year-round explosion.

Setting up everything from large firework shows to smaller, more intimate, displays, Leonard-based Pyrotex, has done all kinds of night sky lighting, said Paige Mejia, company co-owner and chief marketing officer.

Mejia said the company does over 100 shows a year, from corporate events and weddings, to larger fireworks shows. The company operates all over Texas, but the Metroplex is their main service area, including past Sundance Square New Year’s Eve events.

The Fourth of July is by far their biggest event of the year, followed by Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Mejia noted.

“I started Fourth of July, as far as reaching out to my clients — in August of last year,” she said. “We were pretty much full by the end of February, we had been pretty much booked.”

The long fuse

A typical calendar year for the company starts with New Year’s Eve displays at the top of the year, followed by a short break from January to March, Mejia said.

Then wedding season in the spring with soon-to-be-married couples choosing to end their special day with a bang. Wedding season then rolls into the summer months and, of course, the Fourth of July.

After the July holiday, it slows down a bit but picks back up in the fall with another round of weddings, followed by Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations, Mejia said. This year specifically, has been busy for the company after the pandemic disrupted many seasonal celebrations.

“We’ve been doing really, one to six or seven shows a week, since September,” she said. “We had that little lull in August that we normally have, and then it just started and it has not stopped.”

When it comes to choosing what the fireworks show will look like, Mejia said, they determine the color and theme of the event, then light the fuse.

For example, two University of Baylor graduates were tying the knot and were left with a show of green and gold fireworks, set to the Baylor fight song. Another couple were set to be married at EPCOT at Walt Disney World in Florida, but couldn’t make it because of the pandemic, so the team tried their best to replicate the Mouse House magic themselves and it was a success, Mejia said.

Every fireworks show is tied to music and customers can pick and choose what they want, but if they need a little help, Mejia said, they have plenty of past sets to choose from.

On one occasion, a groom asked if he could walk into the wedding through flames with ACDC’s “Thunderstruck” playing, Mejia said. She told him it was possible, but the couple ended up not going through with it.

“‘I’m like, “Can someone please do that? Because I think that’s cool”,” she said. “It’s fun when we get those people that want to be creative.”

Up and away

Putting on a pyrotechnic display is complicated and demands teamwork and flawless communication.

Each display is setup on a trailer full of mortars — aka the tube — where the pyrotechnic shells are placed, and are wired together. The wiring system leads to a controller that can launch the pre-determined display with just a touch of a button, Mejia said.

The controller firing system has been around for some time and the last time any hand lighting of fireworks were done for a show, was back in the ‘90s, Mejia said

“It’s just too dangerous,” said Mejia on hand lighting a firework show.

They do occasionally use the old system for firework shows, involving a stopwatch and cue sheet, where the technicians are more hands-on with the firing, Mejia said. Some technicians even like that method more, because they have a more active role then simply pushing a button.

After a show its cleanup time, where the crew walks the firing zone making sure there aren’t any dead shells that didn’t go off. Cleaning up the debris takes a few hours and then the crew is off to the next show, Mejia said.

The size of the crew depends on how big the job is. For a small job it may just be two people, but larger shows might call for a dozen technicians getting everything ready to go, Mejia said. Either way, everyone working a show is well-trained.

“Safety first,” she said in explanation.

A little powder and light

Pyrotex first lit its fuse in 1979, when Randy Beckham founded the company and served as a concert pyro technician for years, working on shows for the Bee Gees, David Bowie and KC and The Sunshine Band. Beckham started doing outdoor events in the ‘90s.

Beckham died in 2017, and in his will he left the company to his wife Linda, Mejia, general manager Derek Willingham and production manager Patrick Mahaffey.

Mejia said they like to think of the company as a family, the same way Beckham envisioned it before his passing. They might be in the “blow stuff up” business, but each show is attempting to hit that awestruck feeling only fireworks can give.

“It’s the magic of it,” she said. “What it creates and how the fact that a little bit of powder and chemical reaction can create something that beautiful.”