How did ignorance help create Thunder Over Louisville? A Q&A with the man behind the show

Editor's note: This interview has been condensed, organized and edited for space and clarity.

After a two-year hiatus from its home on the waterfront due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Thunder Over Louisville is back downtown.

And so is Wayne Hettinger, who has produced the Kentucky Derby Festival's showstopper since its inception in 1989.

The theme of this year's show, appropriately, is "The Legend Returns."

As he heads into Thunder, The Courier Journal posed some questions to Hettinger about his history and why he thinks this year’s 24-minute display – which will celebrate the Air Force's 75th anniversary – will be the best yet.

Here's what he said:

What exactly does it mean to be the producer for Thunder Over Louisville?

As a producer, I'm producing the entire overall concept and how we're putting those concepts together. And then I've got teams that help me. In other words, I explain the overall idea and how I see it, one folding into the next, and then going to them for their support to get it done, quite honestly.

It wasn't until Thunder that I knew anything at all about fireworks. … The same thing happened with the aircraft. … And needless to say, I was having a great time learning and working with these people because I was entering worlds that you just don't have backgrounds for that. You just learn and get there quick as you can.

Tell me a bit about your company, Visual Presentations Inc.

My company is 44 years old, and I started out … doing multimedia slideshows for corporations. And that's the way it started out, doing their sales meetings and meetings where they needed visual support. That was my roots. I graduated from the Cincinnati Art Academy with a graphic design background. And, as I've said before, my drawing board just kept getting bigger.

Were you nervous in those early years putting on Thunder?

I was treading into stuff that had never been done before. My ignorance is what led the way on it. I didn't know that you couldn't do this, and you couldn't do that. I just kept pushing forward. And you know, because now we were involved with two states, three cities, closing down the Ohio River, rerouting airspace because it's in a direct route to the airport. There's a train bridge. We're going to have to stop the train. There was a lot of hurdles that had to be crossed. I guess the best thing that I was doing was getting everybody excited with the concept, and it was amazing how three cities jumped on board and it got support from the state. It just kept growing and growing.

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It’s been two years since Thunder was held down at the waterfront. Is this year’s Thunder going to feel like a return to normal?

There's no question in my mind on that. You've heard the term timing is everything. And this particular show we started the creative on this five years ago because we knew that the 75th anniversary of the Air Force was coming up. So we immediately started planning five years ago because it was going to be heavily involved to get the go from the Air Force. It's been a long five-year haul, including in the last couple of years, several trips back and forth at the Pentagon with the Air Force, to get their approval, to support it in the way they're going to.

The timing has just been perfect for us returning back down to the waterfront, the 75th anniversary of the Air Force. I know everybody's excited about just getting out after what we've come through with the two years of COVID. I'm praying that we've got good weather. It would be dynamite all the way around.

Tell me a bit about the new static air display at the Kentucky Air National Guard Base.

This will be the first time since 9/11 that we've been able to have the static air show. This is a chance for people to see this aircraft on the ground, talk to the pilots. You see these aircraft fly through, that's one thing. But to stand right beside this aircraft and look at it and get a chance to see them and talk to the pilots takes it to a whole another plateau of entertainment. It’s stuff the average person doesn't get to see very often.

How do you keep things fresh while honoring tradition?

It really is a give-and-take because you want to make it new and exciting and different. But at the same time there's several elements that have become an icon of the show and people are waiting for those icons to happen. And I'm referring to the waterfall off the bridge or Bogey’s March going into the finale.

When you're looking at it as a producer, it's the same old lady. We’ve got to give her a new dress and come at a different way so that she stays beautiful. That's kind of the formula, what you're faced with every year. What can we do to add a new twist? Because we’ve got to keep that excitement level up there.

Do you have any pre-Thunder rituals?

A: It's always been good luck, a bean soup lunch, and we refer to it as ‘gear up and gas up.’ (Hettinger explained he takes the cue from NASA, where it’s a long-running Kennedy Space Center launch-day tradition)

What is Thunder day like?

The day of show everybody thinks I'm upside-down when in fact I'm done. … People don't realize that we're taking on one of the biggest shows in the country that's going to go live from 3 in the afternoon on up to 10 at night, and we're going to do this without a single rehearsal.

I'm there to make a decision if we've got a problem, but other than that, I'm like everybody else. I'm kicking back and enjoying the hell out of the show.

Thunder was canceled in 2020 due to COVID. How did you spend that day?

That happened so quick. The concept of everything for the show was in place. The music tracks were done. We were in go mode, and then it just got shut down. … That was hard on all of us because all of our hearts had been put into it.

We did a Zoom call with a lot of the key people. We did a toast, and we talked about the good times, the bad times and had lots of laughs. And about six more toasts.

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How was planning last year’s altered version of Thunder, which saw an abbreviated air show and multiple firework launch sites?

You wouldn't believe the amount of things that we learned from that. It was like, 'OK, we're going to have to reinvent the wheel.' That's when it was decided if we can't bring the community together, how do we go about taking the event to the community?

It was a huge undertaking. … You quickly realize, you know, we're not going to be able to just put explosives on the truck and drag them through town … So, in a weird way, I was having a ball with it because it was exciting trying to figure out a new way to approach it.

Tell me a bit more about the music in this year’s show.

We finished the track right after Christmas. It's going to be a totally different take this year. Again, we were looking for how do we rearrange this. We got a lot of input. The younger crowd is going to like it. They're going to relate to it a lot. Quite frankly, there's several songs in it I've never heard before until we were putting it in the track.

That's where I'm being very cautious as I get older to drag the younger set in so that I’m not cramming an old guy’s thoughts in front of everybody.

Where’d your control room code name “Pappy” come from?

That stems back from my days in the Army … I was 25 years old and I was the old man. My company commander was younger than me. … Now, I'm dad to all these people. I mean, my gosh, the guys that are flying in the show weren't even born when I started this.

All of us that were in the military, you went where Uncle Sam sent you. And I did my whole tour at Fort Knox, never left for Vietnam. I was blessed, to say the least. And quite honestly that's been my big push personally ever since then to honor the people that served, because there was never any doubt in my mind that somebody took my place in Vietnam.

I’ve read that the "Star Wars" films are your favorite movies?

They totally changed the movie industry. When your background is in production, and you see what George Lucas was doing and stuff that had never been done before, it was mind-blowing. … And then musically in "Star Wars," John Williams’ tracks, I mean, there isn’t a person on the face of the Earth that doesn't know that whole soundtrack from the original "Star Wars." … I grew up during the dawn of the whole Space Race. I was an absolute rocket fanatic. I loved all that stuff as a kid. … I had this huge love of NASA and what they were doing.

How is it that you don't get tired of planning Thunder?

Well, it's certainly a fair question. And not only have I been asked that a lot, I've asked myself that a lot. You know, when people retire, and it’s all they want to do is go and have their golf game? Most of my life has been my golf game. I've been so blessed with having fun with my job.

Reporter Matthew Glowicki can be reached at mglowicki@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4000 or on Twitter @mattglo.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Q&A with Thunder Over Louisville producer Wayne Hettinger