There’s something about fireworks that makes children and adults alike stop everything and stare up into the sky in complete wonderment.

Is it the colors, the sounds, the ambiance — all of the above? Fireworks are that celebration in the sky that causes all who have eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to feel to come together in a unified feeling of awe.

For one Spanish Fork man, fireworks shows have not only been something he enjoys watching, but also creating each year for the Fiesta Days Pyromusical.

Since he was a child growing up in Spanish Fork, Matt Guilbert loved watching fireworks. Not only did he “ooh” and “ah” at the colorful sparks of fire in the sky, but he wondered how it was done.

“I always liked fireworks as a kid,” Guilbert said. “Many kids love the sounds, color and the fact that they are explosives. I loved it all. Fireworks were colorful sound explosives that you could control! As a kid, some of my fondest memories were during Fiesta Days, and I remember being 8- or 10-years-old and wanting to do the fireworks for a citywide celebration.”

Guilbert, who is a science teacher at Spanish Fork High School, said that as he grew up, he put his childhood dream aside, and even pushed it off as a silly dream. It all came flooding back to him one day in 2012 when he was introduced to a new way of putting on a fireworks show by some Salt Lake City area pyrotechnicians.

“I was watching a demonstration from some pyrotechnicians in the Salt Lake City area, and I learned how you could program and time fireworks to go off with music,” he said. “After the presentation, I thought, ‘People are doing fireworks all wrong!'”

It was that summer during Fiesta Days when Guilbert decided to put on his own show in front of his house. The show grew in popularity, making it necessary to move it to Centennial Park, where he was having a few thousand people show up to watch. At this point, Guilbert, who was funding the show completely on his own, was told he needed to get a permit. Along with the financial strain of putting on a show, this was a lot for him to take on, so decided it was time to give it up.

“I loved doing the show, but funding it on a teacher’s salary was too much,” Guilbert said. “When I was about to hang it up, a high school friend of mine, Jason Turner, said that he would help fund some of it and find sponsors.”

Turner did just that, and was able to get sponsors, including a main sponsor, Pacific Horizon Credit Union, to fund the show, and Joe Anderson, of Andersound, to donate sound equipment and time to make the show possible. The show was eventually moved to the Sports Park to house the now 15,000 viewers. And in 2016, the city of Spanish Fork made the show an official Fiesta Days event, helping Guilbert realize his childhood dream.

“What many people may not realize, is that creating this show is me just having fun,” Guilbert said. “When I’m working on putting the show together, I see songs as color and shapes of fireworks. A painter has his paintbrush. A musician has his instrument. Fireworks are what I create with.”

The Fiesta Days Pyromusical event will begin at 6 p.m. on July 12 at the Spanish Fork Sports Park soccer fields. Before the fireworks go off, Ryan Shupe will perform a concert. The pyromusical itself will start at dark and last about 25 minutes.

For more information on the pyromusical and all of the other Fiesta Days events, go to, spanishfork.org.