Fireworks fan who recorded entire CarMax Park malfunction 'thought it was part of the show'

RICHMOND, Va. — For many fans at CarMax Park Thursday night, the moment the postgame fireworks show malfunctioned did not feel like an emergency — it felt like a surprise feature.

Diana Robarts, who was sitting in Section 117 on the first base side, said she watched the fireworks skitter across the field in multiple directions and genuinely wondered whether it was intentional.

"They kept saying in-your-face fireworks, and so we were like, but that's really in your face," Robarts said.

Robarts said she was sitting near the person operating the fireworks and watched him closely throughout the show. Nothing about his demeanor suggested anything had gone wrong.

"He was not like jumping. He was not red flagging. He was not waving people down. He was not yelling. He did not look at all like he was in distress, like something happened wrong — just acting normal and looking at the computer," Robarts said.

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When she left the stadium after the show, nobody around her was panicking or talking about what had happened.

"There was nobody running out of the stadium. There was nobody going, 'Oh my gosh, did you see that?'" Robarts said. "Nobody seemed fazed by it."

She only learned the fireworks had malfunctioned when she got home and saw news coverage.

"It was only when I got home that I learned it was really not supposed to happen that way," Robarts said.

Robarts, who recorded the entire show on video because she loves fireworks, said her footage shows normal fireworks continuing for about a minute and a half after the first malfunction — directly contradicting the fireworks company's claim that technicians immediately terminated the show once the malfunction began.

Jack Snead, who was sitting in centerfield, had a similar experience. He said it took about 20 seconds before he realized something was wrong.

"When I started seeing more of them like shooting all over the place and the smoke was moving in all different kind of directions — that's when I started to realize, 'Hey, I don't think something's right,'" Snead said.

Snead said his friends joked in the moment about what might happen to whoever was responsible.

"All my friends were like, 'Oh man, like, whoever's doing this might be getting fired,'" Snead said.

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The experience, both fans said, ultimately came down to where you were sitting. Robarts noted that fans closer to home plate appeared to have a very different experience than those in the outfield.

"I guess it depends on where you sat to the extreme that you thought or saw that this was — something that shouldn't have happened," Robarts said.

Richmond

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Despite everything, neither fan is staying away. Robarts already has tickets to another Squirrels fireworks show in two weeks.

"It's not going to stop me from seeing the Squirrels again. It's not going to stop me from seeing the Squirrels with fireworks. It's just one of those little accidents," Robarts said.

Snead agreed.

"In a weird way, it kind of made it more exciting," Snead said.