Behind the scenes of South Carolina football’s gameday fireworks operation
Saturdays at South Carolina are a spectacle. From the on-field action to the traditions that take place in and around Williams-Brice Stadium, Gamecock football gamedays are special.
A small part that makes a big — and loud — impression on gamedays are the fireworks. Different pyrotechnics can be seen launching before, during and after USC games from the videoboard, Cocky’s Cockaboose or from the field.
Although the firework displays are somewhat larger than life, costing $15,000 per game on average, they’re made possible by a team of seven pyro experts who work with Tennessee-based company Pyro Shows.
Russ Ellis is one of those people. He’s the on-site manager for the fireworks at Gamecocks games and is the “shooter” for the Cockaboose pyro. Ellis joined the company in 1987 and is in his fifth season working directly with USC.
“Growing up as a kid, I always enjoyed fireworks — going out, buying consumer fireworks and just shooting them in the back yard,” Ellis told The State. “And then I found out I could get paid to shoot fireworks for other people.”
The operation
Ellis coordinates the whole process for the Gamecocks’ fireworks displays, which starts at the beginning of the season with designing the “touchdown shots.”
“Touchdowns and scores are always predetermined and set at the beginning of the season to always have a particular look, and that will be the way South Carolina looks, with the correct colors and the types of devices,” he said.
USC requires more of these shots than most athletic programs, Ellis said, because the stadium uses firework displays for touchdowns and field goals. Add in the extra hype effects, and it leads to a hefty arsenal.
“All in all, it’s about 600 pieces of product that we shoot,” he said.
Pyro Shows orders the fireworks from Spanish manufacturer Pirotecnia Caballer, and tests them at their warehouse in LaFollette, Tennessee. Then, on game weeks, Ellis and his crew drive the fireworks from a warehouse to Columbia on a container truck. The fireworks are brought up through the Floyd building in the north end zone and up to the video board or to the loading areas on the field level.
Three “shooters” set up near their designated fireworks, either on the video board or at the field level, and use a wireless firing system to set off the pyrotechnics once it’s go-time.
“When he selects up touchdown and then hits fire, it goes through and wirelessly tells all those modules to shoot that touchdown (shot),” Ellis said.
For special hype videos, Ellis works with USC the week before in order to program accompanying fireworks. For a video lasting two-and-a-half minutes, the pyro programming process can take about four hours.
“I’ll probably spend four hours on getting it programmed and the product selected and to our facility, for them to pull the product from our storage box and get it all ready for us,” he said.
What if they run out of fireworks?
The short answer is, they probably won’t. The old company policy, Ellis said, required 10 touchdown shots available on gamedays. Shortly after South Carolina’s nine-touchdown performance against Tennessee in 2022, where the ninth firework was being reloaded and missed the final Gamecocks score, the arsenal was expanded.
“We always come with 10 touchdowns that we go in ahead and get loaded,” Ellis said. “We always bring an additional five touchdowns that we have with us if they have an unbelievably high-scoring game.”
The modern-era record for points scored by a team in a single game is held by Stephen F. Austin. The Lumberjacks scored 98 points against Warner in 2022, and did so with 15 scoring drives. So the Gamecocks would need to break that record to deplete their full inventory of pyro.
The future of fireworks at USC
With $350 million in renovations coming to Williams-Brice Stadium following the 2025 season, the question of how the changes will affect fireworks has been on the minds of Ellis and Joe O’Clair’s, USC’s associate AD for marketing and fan experience. But not to worry — if anything, the renovations will only make room for more fireworks.
“We’ve been in discussions with Joe [O’Clair] and with their design group about some future locations that we may be able to add as additional locations to shoot fireworks from,” Ellis said.
The most likely spot they’ve discussed so far, Ellis said, is atop the new videoboards planned for the south end zone. This will allow fireworks to be shot from both sides of the stadium.
“It should not change on the video board side, because your clearance from top of board to fans is going to be about the same,” O’Clair said. “I think the question would be is, can stuff be shut off the south ramps or whatever goes in those areas?”
This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Behind the scenes of South Carolina football’s gameday fireworks operation."
