Baltimore approves $184,817 contract for Inner Harbor fireworks and South Baltimore drone show

Baltimore’s Board of Estimates approved a $184,817 no-bid contract Tuesday for Fourth of July fireworks at the Inner Harbor and a drone show at West Covington Park, adding a second waterfront light show beyond the city’s traditional downtown centerpiece. Four of the five members voted for the agreement; Comptroller Bill Henry abstained.

The contract went to Advanced Entertainment Technologies, doing business as Image Engineering, to provide both the drones and the fireworks. The memo on the agenda said competitive bidding was “not practical,” and Henry said his office had not received an advance copy for review and that he did not want to set a precedent by approving items before his office had seen them. Linzy Jackson, III, director of the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Culture and Entertainment, said the delay was tied to the late arrival of the signed contract and questions from the city’s Office of Risk Management.

The split programming gives Baltimore residents two very different holiday settings. The Inner Harbor remains the city’s most established fireworks destination, while West Covington Park becomes the first South Baltimore site to host a Fourth of July drone show. The 12.2-acre waterfront green space sits at 101 West Cromwell St. and was once a brownfield and industrial site before its transformation into public green space in 2015, with shoreline trails, overlooks and native plantings.

Baltimore has already used drone programming on the south waterfront. In 2025, the city’s drone show was staged at Middle Branch Park as part of the Cherry Hill Arts & Music Waterfront Festival, which ran from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and ended with a 9:30 p.m. drone display. Last year’s Inner Harbor fireworks also began around 9:30 p.m., giving the city two familiar nighttime windows now split across two different waterfronts.

The move comes during a summer when Baltimore is leaning hard on its harbor and riverfront spaces. Sail250 Maryland & Airshow Baltimore is running June 24-30, 2026, as part of a waterfront-heavy slate built around the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. City tourism materials say the Inner Harbor will once again have fireworks this year, but the addition of West Covington Park shows Baltimore is trying to push marquee holiday programming farther south, not just toward the same downtown crowd.