JANESVILLE Local fireworks sellers and festival organizers say celebrating Americas 250th anniversary hasnt come cheap, as tariffs on Chinese-made fireworks and inflation have driven up costs ahead of the big Fourth of July holiday.
People who plan and manage big, local fireworks showcases say theyve faced a jump in fireworks cost overall, driven by tariffs on pyrotechnics and increased shipping costs.
Janesville resident Joel Thorn is a pyrotechnics expert who has 35 years experience planning and managing large-scale public fireworks shows. He estimates that big, commercial-grade fireworks overall have jumped at least 20% in price from recent years, largely because of tariffs and increases in boat, truck and rail shipping costs.
Thorn runs the annual Fourth of July fireworks showcase on the Rock River at Traxler Park. He was at the helm of Star Spangled Saturday last week which included Traxler Parks dusk fireworks show to celebrate the nations 250th year.
Thorn said a local grocery store chain that funds the fireworks and a private donor who funds the shows grand finale boosted their contribution 20% to make up for the tariff-driven cost increases.
And Thorn said he used ingenuity and adapted a workaround to stretch fireworks dollars further so Star Spangled Saturdays 250th year fireworks show would not fizzle out under public expectations.
Fireworks light up the sky as spectators gather during the Rock Aqua Jays Star Spangled Saturday Fourth of July event at Traxler Park in Janesville on Saturday, June 28, 2025. The display capped a day of live music, kids rides, food trucks, and a water ski show.
Normally, big fireworks aerial shells for major pyrotechnics shows are sold in a pre-packed box like a large egg crate, that houses multiple shells that are lit off in a series. Thorn found out that he could get as many fireworks as he needed to prevent price escalation from shrinking the Star Spangled show by buying loose, individual shells rather than those hooked together in a box.
It required fireworks prep during the parts of the show the old-school way, with Thorn and his partner technicians manually setting up chains of individual fireworks, and joining them together ahead of the show.
It was pretty labor intensive, but at the end of the day, the end result was that people got to see a little bit more.
Candace Vandergraph from the Cornerstone Church of God in Beloit was operating her fireworks stand in the parking lot in front of the Uptown Janesville mall on Milton Avenue on July 2.
She said that this year, she noticed people are buying the smaller bang snaps or smaller-format fireworks to light off with their family rather than the bigger, heavier-grade items. She said fireworks sales had been pretty slow the week before the Fourth of July, but business was starting to turn a corner.
It is kind of picking up more today, she said. I would say a lot of people are just kind of going for the probably cheaper things (with fireworks overall) being so expensive.
Vandergraph said she has only sold a few bigger items. The tent sells TNT Fireworks branded items. TNTs line is mostly ground fireworks like fountains, along with a few aerial fireworks such as Roman Candles and novelty items like sparklers and bang snaps.
She said that they have been operating the tent since last year. The money the church makes selling fireworks goes toward mission trips and the church in Beloit.
Milton
Miltons Rhythm & Booms is a four-day-long event that takes place at Schilberg Park, with food, music and a fireworks display.
Derek Henze, coordinator for Miltons Rhythm & Booms, said its the biggest year for the festival because its being wrapped around the nations 250th year.
Although fireworks come at an inflated cost this year, Henze said its not a worry. The Milton festivals organizers bought the fireworks earlier, ahead of the current impact of tariffs and inflation.
Henze said organizers planned ahead by launching fundraising the 250th four years ago, knowing the group wanted to make the festival bigger than ever.
They also created more fundraisers like the Milton 4th of July Golf Outing, Meat Raffles, a fireworks stand, and a few other income streams as well.
At Rhythm & Booms Highway 59 and Sunnyside Drive fireworks stand, MacKenzie Dietz, the stands cashier, said most of her customers have been locals who came seeking smaller fireworks, like Pop-Its and Roman Candles.
Jesse Wonderline, an area resident, stopped at the stand to pick up his regular haul for the holiday, but said he wasnt planning anything out of the ordinary for the nations 250th anniversary.
[Buying] just enough to keep the little ones happy, he said.
Still, compared to this time in past years, the top shelf of the stand was sparse, Dietz told The 69蹤獲.
Dietz added she has seen a slight increase in the amount of larger fireworks people have bought this year. She said people tell her theyre putting on larger celebrations to mark the nations 250th birthday. One sale totaled $600 worth of top-shelf fireworks, she said.
Though this is her first year working the stand, she said sales are about in line with the stands normal volume. As of Thursday afternoon, the stand had hauled in $10,558.53 worth of fireworks. The proceeds go toward the Milton city firework show that takes place this Saturday night.