Ben Strickler, the community events coordinator for the city’s parks department, estimated that it costs $10,000 just to hire the bands and prepare the stages. The event as a whole, including the fireworks display, costs about $50,000. With three viewing locations, it draws about 10,000 people, and it has a definite economic impact, said Strickler.
“That doesn’t include the number of neighborhood parties. There’s a lot going on outside the three viewing locations,” Strickler said.
Around those viewing locations are a number of license plates from Kentucky and Indiana.
“I think it has a very positive (impact),” he said. “We’re capturing folks in the community for an evening. We’re kind of geared for an after-work crowd that would get a meal out of the event … We know it helps the restaurants around here. They’re quite busy.”
Most any event, like a fireworks display, draws a large crowd, and that equals economic impact, said Pat Moeller, the mayor of Hamilton, which offers a parade and fireworks on July 4. The parade has been funded via the Michael J. Colligan fund of the Hamilton Community Foundation, although sponsored events have struggled to a degree.
“The sponsor dollars for the evening fireworks has been a challenge. But we’ve been blessed to have sponsors to keep it going,” Moeller said.
Middletown had a July 4 event called All-American Weekend that featured fireworks and a festival, but that event ended in 2006 after 26 years, after struggles to find financing and people to set up the event. Since then, fireworks in Middletown have been sporadic. Only the parade has been a constant, and even that’s struggling, as people associated with the event have died in recent years, said Deb Morrison, one of its organizers.
“The Middletown Memorial Day Association has been hit hard the last two years. We lost our Chairman Kenneth Wills in 2013, and we also lost our Middletown Police Liaison Mike Davis in 2013, and this year we lost our General Parade Advisor Judge Anthony Valen on June 17,” Morrison said. “It has been tough, but as they say, the show must go on, because everyone loves a parade.”
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