Ohio State Parks: Fireworks vs. Drone Shows

This survey was conducted to evaluate how fireworks and drone shows are used in Ohio's state parks, and what each one costs a park in cleanup time and environmental impact. For my sampling strategy, I was connected with district managers, and naturalists across Ohio through Heather Bokman, sustainability coordinator for ODNR. What I was seeking to realize from these managers and other ODNR workers was a better understanding of the scale of entertainment events in parks (fireworks vs. drones) as well as what park workers perspective is on the entertainment events.

I received 19 responses, but 10 of those parks host no shows at all, leaving 9 parks with firsthand experience. Because so few parks host shows, I decided to map every respondent so the parks with no shows are visible alongside the ones that do.

From this visualization, we can see that the choice between fireworks and drones comes down to more than the environment. Fireworks shows left 3 or more staff-hours of cleanup at four of the five parks that host them, while every park that hosted a drone show reported 1-2 hours or less, and 7 of the 8 respondents who rated the two called drones a much better option for the environment. What holds drones back is cost and tradition. As one park manager put it, "The drones were so quiet, but there is a tradition of fireworks in the park." The full data from the ODNR park staff used in this visualization is shown below:

Survey:

Responses: