LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Fourth of July celebrations are starting up across Colorado including the Big Belmar Bash with live music and a drone light show.
For the last four years, the city has turned to Sky Elements to help produce the show. The drone display will run for 18 minutes this year showcasing different formations including an iconic Lakewood landmark.
▶️ WATCH: Denver7's Maggy Wolanske got an inside look at the drone show
Katherine Claeys, EVP of strategy for Sky Elements, explained the company started in 2021 and is “one of the largest drone show companies in the United States.” They are doing shows all over the country and have 250 drones for this show in honor of America’s 250th birthday.
“I think the best thing about drone shows are that you get to put images in the sky," Claeys said. "Fireworks are fantastic. They're bright, they're loud, they're fun, but especially during a time where you have some fire bans, it's nice to have the drones put images in the sky from iconic 250th America to celebrating local Lakewood, everything like that.”
The company conducts test flights ahead of the show, and spent around a week building the programming for it.
“We do test flights and things like that. Not necessarily testing our clients' animations, but what our team does is through the safety programs and the different ways that we animate,” said Claeys. “That's how they can really tell where drones are. And each drone gets its own path so that it has a safe flight.”
The Belmar celebration draws a crowd with organizers expecting 20,000 people for this year's event, a number the celebration has surpassed before.
Allysen Sensantilli, marketing and promotion supervisor for the City of Lakewood, explained this event is a great way to celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States and the 150th birthday in Colorado, while also keeping the community safe
“In drought years, we wanted to make sure the community was safe, and we were partnering with our Lakewood PD and West Metro Fire to do something they could support. So we came up with a drone show, and we've been doing that for the last four years,” said Sensantilli.
Julie Martinez arrived hours early to secure a prime spot for her family at the annual Belmar Fourth of July celebration.
"There's going to be a lot of people here. Every year, it's tons of people," Martinez said.
The dry conditions across the region have led to increased fire danger with multiple fires burning across our state. The City of Lakewood is under a fire ban making fireworks illegal.
"We're in a severe drought throughout Jefferson County. We're actually nationally in a fuels and fire behavior advisory due to the extreme fire behavior," said Brendan Finnegan, assistant chief for West Metro Fire Rescue.
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Finnegan said the drones are a good alternate to fireworks, and that safety planning has been thorough.
"We have a set time frame that we're looking at. It's a programed show. They have a very exciting show in store. And we are ahead of the game with incident command fire and police together and medics on site to really help the community celebrate safely," Finnegan said.
For families like Martinez's, seeing the drones hasn't dampened the spirit of the holiday.
"And because of the fires, we're here for the drone show and, you know, the music activities for the kids," Martinez said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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