Up in the sky July 4: Drones, fireworks and a city commissioner
Lake Worth Beach unveils plans for America’s 250th birthday celebration in Bryant Park, eager to bounce back from two straight lackluster fireworks shows
DRONES, FIREWORKS AND a parachuting city commissioner will fill the skies over the downtown Lake Worth Beach waterfront on the Fourth of July.
Eager to bounce back from two consecutive lackluster Independence Day fireworks displays, city officials want to make their celebration of America’s 250th anniversary a memorable one.
Among the highlights of the $115,000 program expected to attract 10,000 people to Bryant Park on July 4:
A hot-dog eating contest, with six contestants and modeled after the Nathan’s Famous event in Coney Island.
A skydiving performance by the All Veteran Group parachuting team, featuring four jumpers and one tandem jumper: Vice Mayor Mimi May.
The city’s first drone show, featuring 18 animations from 300 lighted drones over 15 minutes.
A six-minute fireworks display of more than 11,700 shots, slated to start while the last drone animation is still in the air.
The program will also feature two concerts — Sekond Nature at 7 p.m. and the Elton John cover band Elton and the Jets performing sets at 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
“We owe it to the residents to have a great show this year,’’ Commissioner Anthony Segrich said.
The Independence Day action will kick off at noon with the Great American Raft Race hosted by the Neighborhood Association Presidents’ Council.
The city-sponsored festivities start at 5:30 p.m. with the hot-dog eating contest. Watch the city’s social media later this week or next week for details on how to apply for one of six openings.
Around 7:45 p.m. the parachuting team will jump from 5,000 feet and carry a special edition American flag commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
The same group was scheduled to offer a skydiving performance in November for Lake Worth Beach’s Veterans Day festivities, but the jump was canceled because the group did not get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. City officials at the time blamed the lack of approval on a federal government shutdown.
For the July 4 jump, All Veteran Group has submitted FAA paperwork and will file “a presidential flight restriction exception request” if President Donald Trump is in South Florida that weekend, Stuart Sword, the interim director for the city’s Leisure Services department, told commissioners Tuesday.
All Veterans Group offered to let one elected official join the team as a tandem jumper. Both Segrich and May expressed an interest when the invitation was made at Tuesday’s meeting.
“I make a motion for the vice mayor to jump out of a plane,’’ Commissioner Sarah Malega said after Segrich bowed out in deference to May’s enthusiasm.
It will be May’s first parachuting jump, but Sword offered some assurances.
“This is the most professional and experienced team you could jump with. They all have over 7,000 jumps,’’ he said.
The jumpers will freefall for about 10 seconds before opening their chutes at 2,000 feet and landing at Hole 6 at the south end of the city’s golf course. Video from a GoPro mounted on one jumper’s helmet will be shared on social media.
“The freefall will be somewhat brief but it’ll definitely be the experience of a lifetime,’’ Sword said.
The drones, flown by LunaLite of Sunrise, will launch around 8:45 p.m. from the kayak launch/parking lot at Snook Islands just north of the west end of the Lake Worth Bridge.
The drone animations will face southwest, so the best viewing area will be in Bryant Park.
“The drones are not omnidirectional. If you are north or on the beach side you will be reading the animation in reverse,’’ Sword said.
The fireworks display, put on by LightFX Fireworks of Miami, will be launched at Hole 7 of the golf course around 9 p.m. They will feature 11,708 shots, with high-volume bursts for the first minute followed by three minutes of steady fireworks and a two-minute grand finale.
The combined drone and fireworks displays will last about 18 minutes.
“We’ve never done the drones before, so who knows what it’s all going to be like,’’ Commissioner Chris McVoy said after sharing concerns that the 6-minute fireworks display may seem too short to viewers.
If all goes well on July 4, there’s a chance the city could go with an all-drone display in 2027.
“We’ve had a couple kerfuffles in the last couple of years. I’ll leave it at that,’’ Malega said Tuesday, referring to problems at the city’s 2024 and 2025 fireworks displays.
In November, when commissioners decided to do a hybrid show for 2026, Malega said: “It didn’t look good on the city when two years in a row the fireworks were obsolete and Bryant Park was packed with people.’’
The Lake Worth Beach Bridge will be closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The ride-share dropoff is at Fourth Avenue South and South Lakeside Drive at South Bryant Park.
The casino restaurant Benny’s on the Beach paid $15,000 to be the presenting sponsor for 2026. City officials said they have three other sponsors so far chipping in a total of $3,000 and seven other pending sponsors.
Anyone interested in purchasing a sponsorship can call 561 533 7395 or email lwbspecialevents@lakeworthbeachfl.gov.