Thunder Over Louisville 2019: Check Out This 30 Minute Firework Display

There were two reasons we decided to visit Kentucky in April & May this year. One – the Kentucky Derby. Two – Thunder Over Louisville.

Neither of us had heard of Thunder Over Louisville until about a year ago, but when we had it suggested to us, Shae and I both knew it was something we needed to experience.

That’s because it’s a 30 minute firework display set to music. We’ve experienced some good firework displays in the past, but nothing that long and not any set to music.

Air Show

Fireworks isn’t all there is to Thunder Over Louisville though. The evening actually began at 3pm with an air show that lasted several hours.

If you plan on attending, it’s worth arriving early in the afternoon if you want to claim a prime spot in Louisville Waterfront Park. Having said that, we didn’t arrive until about 7pm and we still managed to find a good place to set our picnic blanket.

We hadn’t ever attended an air show and it turned out to be much more fun than either of us were expecting.

The whole event had a State Fair vibe to it, complete with the myriad of deliciously unhealthy food options. The photo below was taken earlier in the day; the lines for food were enormous by the time we were hungry later that evening as hundreds of thousands of people descended on the site.

One of the final air show displays took place as it got dark. That’s when the Army Golden Knights conducted a parachute display where the parachutists looked more like comets falling to earth.

Through the entire event, some local radio DJs were MCing the event and playing a great mix of music. Everyone in Louisville Waterfront Park was able to hear what was going on as they had an excellent speaker system set up throughout the park.

Fireworks

Darkness fell and the clock ticked down towards 9:30pm. Everyone counted down the final seconds until the 30 minute firework display began.

The theme of the 2019 Thunder Over Louisville was ‘The Wonderful World of Thunder’ and was set to a fairytale and animated movie soundtrack.

The firework display was amazing – definitely the best one we’ve ever seen in person. The 30 minutes felt like it went on forever (in a good way!) and was capped with an excellent grand finale.

We recorded the entire thing on our GoPro, so here’s a video of the entire event. If you don’t want to watch the entire thing, skip ahead to 7:30 as that’s when the entire crowd started singing along to The Lion King. 11:50 is also worth a listen so you can hear Shae belting out Let It Go from Frozen.

There was an estimated crowd of 700,000 people at this year’s event, many of whom were on the Louisville side. A large number of people also watched across the Ohio River in Clarksville, Indiana.

Our Airbnb was only a 15 minute walk away. That’s something we were glad about as it meant we didn’t have to wait in the inevitable traffic at the end of the event.

Final Thoughts

The 2019 Thunder Over Louisville was amazing. The air show was a lot of fun (even though we missed quite a lot of it), while the firework display was even better than you might imagine a 30 minute display would be.

This is something we’d highly recommend experiencing at some point. Louisville is a great city, so attending Thunder is a good excuse to visit. If you do decide to visit, check out our list of things to do in Louisville.