The consumer fireworks industry is booming.
Sales of consumer fireworks could easily exceed $725 million in revenue this year, according to Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association (APA).
The consumer fireworks industry more than doubled in revenue from 1998 to 2014 – going from $284 million to $695 million, according to the APA. During that time, the only year the industry decreased in revenues was 2012.
Even during the recent recession, fireworks sales continued to grow nationwide. “This industry is recession resilient,” Heckman said, as when money is tight, people look to other forms of entertainment, like fireworks, instead of travel.
Heckman attributes the industry’s rapid growth to the relaxation of fireworks laws nationwide. Only three states – Delaware, Massachusetts and New Jersey – completely ban consumer fireworks.
Joey McCrary, who started selling fireworks out of a Dairy Queen parking lot when he was 16 years old, now works full-time in the industry that almost exclusively depends on a single day for survival – the Fourth of July.
McCrary owns Joey’s Fireworks in Taylors, where rows of rockets, Roman candles, sparklers and other firecrackers line the walls and shelves. He sells fireworks year-round, but Independence Day is the biggest sales day of the year, he said.
The average customer will spend about $100-$200 on fireworks at his store, McCrary said. Bill Munley, a vice president at Bon Secours Health System and regular Joey’s Fireworks customer, puts on a fireworks display for family and friends each year and said he typically buys $800-$1,000 worth of fireworks.
He said family members from Pennsylvania call him every year asking if he’s bringing fireworks to shoot off for a display.
Munley was shopping for his fireworks about a week and a half before July 4, but McCrary said most customers wait until the actual day of the holiday to make their purchases.
About 95 percent of fireworks sales occur around the Fourth of July, Heckman said.
An interesting trend in the industry, she said, is nonprofits using fireworks sales as a major fundraiser. The trend started in California, where laws dictate that nonprofits are the only groups allowed to sell fireworks, Munley said.
Pastor Steve Pinell of Calvary Apostolic Church in Greenville is part of that trend. He said selling fireworks before the Fourth of July is his church’s biggest annual fundraiser. Calvary contracts though TNT Fireworks to sell fireworks at a pop-up stand and keeps 20 percent of the profits.
The church runs stands in three Wal-Mart parking lots, and in the week leading up to the holiday, a single stand can raise around $3,000, Pinell said.
Even bad weather won’t keep people from their Roman candles and sparklers, he said. “I’ve seen people in down-pouring rain buying fireworks.”
