Meet the Artists 2026: Jacob Pierce (Pro-Am Competitor)

2026 Pro-Am Display Competitor

Jacob Pierce

From: Parker, TX

From loading up at his nearby fireworks stand after turning 18 to presenting on the biggest pyrotechnic competition stage in America, Jacob’s rise as a pyrotechnician has been fast and largely self-taught. This Texas native is bringing a head full of cinematic music, a signature obsession with ground effects, and “more than zero” lifts to Sky Wars in September!

Jacob’s pyro story:

Jacob Pierce turned 18 in 2018, graduated high school, and promptly discovered that a fireworks stand two minutes from his house was a dangerous thing (for his wallet) to live near. He and his friends started buying whatever they could get their hands on, and it wasn’t long before his friends started noticing he was a bit more invested than the rest.

“A lot of my friends were like, ‘Okay, you’re getting a little too far into it,'” he laughs.

But his obsession did not falter. The next year he was calculating cake durations and fusing shows together. When friends who could buy pro line products started bringing slices to his backyard shoots, the crowd reaction told him everything he needed to know. He invested in the IGNITE firing system, then graduated to COBRA at the end of 2022 — because by then, he had a goal and he needed the right tools to chase it.

That goal really took shape during the rainy aftermath of Sky Wars 2023. After a storm rolled through and postponed KCAP’s display, Jacob sat in his car processing what he’d just witnessed.

“I remember leaving Sky Wars in ’23 and sitting in my car just with the rain pouring around me. I was bummed I didn’t get to see the show, but I was just like, ‘Okay, I need to figure out how to do this.’ And I guess since that moment, I’ve been just full force trying to get to where I am now.”

Jacob’s path to Sky Wars:

Jacob’s first scripting experience was a “baptism by fire” — a blind pyro competition at the Lone Star Fireworks Festival, helping a friend who was in over his head. “That’s kind of the curse of pyros not being able to say no,” he says. It was rough enough that he came home deflated. But the hook Sky Wars had set was stronger than one bad night.

He joined Pyrotechnics Artists of Texas (PAT) in 2024, a hybrid builder-and-display club with two members who’d already shot at Sky Wars — including James Howard, who ran the mass crackle launch at Sky Wars 2025 and became a key mentor. “His knowledge is just infinite compared to what I have,” Jacob says. “I wouldn’t be comfortable doing shows as big as that without someone like James.”

Jacob also teamed up with friends Jeff Ireland and Josh Gross to enter the Pro-Am at Lone Star. They barely made it in (waitlisted), offered another blind pyro slot (declined), then handed a spot when a team dropped out… and won the competition with a Deadpool-themed show. “We were the backyard guys there,” Jacob says. “I can’t believe we were able to do that.”

The J Team (all three first names start with J) stuck together, returning the following year to headline Lone Star’s 2025 closing display: over four thousand cues, prepped entirely on-site in one frantic post-Sky Wars week.

Lesson very much learned.

What to expect from Jacob’s 2026 show:

Jacob has already finished his script (he may have been the first of the three Pro-Am competitors to do so!) The weeks after he locked in his song choices, he was staying up until the early hours scripting, running on three hours of sleep, and showing up to his kitchen remodeling job looking like a man possessed.

“Some of my coworkers were like, ‘What is wrong with you?'”

The music selection was the hard part. He spent a week or two running tracks over and over until he found the ones where the fireworks write themselves in his head. He landed on cinematic, crowd-moving tracks: the kind that hit different over the Sky Wars sound system. 

Ground effects are a Jacob Pierce signature. He’s become increasingly obsessed with incorporating effects beyond standard flame and strobe pots — gerbs, instant bursts, any textural moments that add sound and dimension closer to the audience. “I don’t think I can shoot a show now and not have different ground effects going off,” he says.

As for the lifts? He’s not saying how many, only that he might have the most on the field this year. “More than zero, less than 10. I’ll give you that.”

Where Jacob finds pyro inspiration:

Jacob watches as many pyromusical videos as he can find, but he’s deliberate about what he takes from them. He’s drawn to international competitions for techniques that haven’t crossed over stateside yet, but is careful not to lift ideas wholesale. 

“I want to pave my own path,” he says. The Sky Wars field, he believes, carries a specific expectation that competitors will bring something new, and designing to meet that standard across an entire script is, he admits, more mentally exhausting than any show he’s scripted before.

Jacob’s Pyro Fast Facts:

• Firing system of choice: Cobra Firing Systems
• Scripting software: Finale 3D
• Signature effects: Ground effects! Gerbs, instant bursts, you name it.
• Sky Wars 2026 Cue count: TBD (but the script’s been done for a while)
• Sky Wars 2026 Lifts: More than zero. Less than 10. Possibly the most on the field.
• Sky Wars 2026 Crew size: 8–10, hand-selected
• Proactive Pyro or Pyrocrastinator? Proactive on scripting. 
• Dry runs planned: 2–3 full dry runs; a dozen audio-only sequence checks
• Times attended Sky Wars: This will be his third (2023 as GA, 2025 as part of the mass crackle launch crew, 2026 as a competitor)
• Pyro shirt count: Around a dozen… so far.

Beyond Sky Wars:

When he’s not scripting shows or remodeling kitchens, Jacob is a homegrown Texas pyro in the truest sense — embedded in his local club, he’s the kind of person who sticks with his “J Team” crew through wins, chaos, and one extremely stressful week of on-site prep. He deliberately stepped back from his own 4th of July show this year to keep his focus on Sky Wars, and his family noticed.

“If I told them I wanted to do another show… they’d be like, ‘You don’t have time for that.'”

They’re not wrong. Sky Wars has always been the goal. Everything else can wait.

Not just anyone gets the opportunity to compete at Sky Wars. Winner or not, what does this opportunity mean for you in your pyro journey?

“From day one, I was dreaming of doing this. It’s really weird to achieve your goals. There are days where I’m still in complete disbelief — where I have to like, pinch myself to remind myself: am I really doing this? But it just means more than I can even put into words. And I like how you said ‘win or lose’ — because just being there on that stage with everyone else who’s competing… that’s more than enough to satisfy.”