Space Needle Fireworks To Be Broadcast Nationally -- New Year's Show To Create Illusion Of Giant Sparkler

Seattle is known for rainy days, clean living and gourmet coffees. Now, a fireworks company hopes the city is remembered for pyrotechnic displays.

Pyro-Spectaculars Inc., which calls itself the West Coast's largest fireworks company, plans to convert the Space Needle into a giant fireworks launcher on New Year's Eve. It will be the first time fireworks have been shot from the city's best-known landmark.

Shortly before midnight, ignited fireworks will ascend the structure, culminating with a final burst of color as the new year begins. Along with the lights, huge speakers will blare sound effects from the movie "The Terminator" and snippets from classical favorites "Swan Lake" and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

With clear skies, the display would be seen throughout the area, producing the illusion of the Space Needle as a giant sparkler, the show's creators said.

"We will create exciting pictures in the sky," said Jim Souza, president of the company that created fireworks displays for this year's World Cup, the Statue of Liberty's 100th anniversary, and the 50th birthday of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges in California.

Alberto Navarro, the show's designer and a Bellevue resident, agreed. "The event will set a precedent for pyrotechnic, environmental and sky art. . . . The Space Needle will be the theater, and the fireworks the drama."

The celebration at the Space Needle will be broadcast live on network television, along with similar events occurring in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The display, costing $50,000, will be different than those seen during the Fourth of July. Traditionally, when fireworks are launched, a trail can be followed through the sky until the explosion. In this show, trails won't be seen, so there will be an element of surprise, Souza said.

Fireworks will be launched from the side and top of the structure by computer controls. Within three minutes, 1,500 projectiles will be fired electronically from the launchers.

Using smaller and lighter fireworks creates less risk for spectators and makes it possible for the display to occur closer to the ground than normal.

"There is no debris that comes back to earth causing any potential hazard to spectators or buildings," Souza said.

Besides the Space Needle, Pyro-Spectaculars will provide firework shows on New Year's Eve at Fircrest Golf Club in Tacoma, at the Crystal Mountain ski area and in Twisp, a rural town on the edge of the Okanogan National Forest in north-central Washington.