Raleigh will hold its July 4 fireworks show at a different location this year
The City of Raleigh is changing the site of its Fourth of July fireworks show this year.
Instead of holding the event at Dorothea Dix Park, the city is bringing the celebration to the area around the Lenovo Center and Carter-Finley Stadium. The July 4 fireworks show was last held at this area in 2021.
“We enjoyed having our fireworks show out at Dix Park,” the city wrote in its announcement. “This year, we’re throwing it back to the stadium complex for a firework-focused event.”
The decision to move the show involved the city’s parks department, Special Events Office, Raleigh Police and partners including the Lenovo Center, NC State and the State Fairgrounds, Julia Milstead, a City of Raleigh spokeswoman told The News & Observer in an email.
Firework-focused means there will be no food trucks or live music included in the event, another change from past years.
Attendees won’t have to take a shuttle to watch the show, Milstead said. They can drive directly to the event area, park for free, walk back to their cars and leave directly from there.
Parking for the 2025 show opens at 6 p.m. Friday, July 4, and fireworks begin at 9:30 p.m. Admission is free.
Venue change comes after a shortened 2024 display
The decision follows a particularly chaotic July 4, 2024, show, which was held at Dix Park.
About 15 minutes before the fireworks were scheduled to begin, rain started falling, The N&O previously reported.
People started to leave, and a DJ announced that there was lightning in the area. But when the rain slowed and lightning was no longer a threat, the city decided to proceed with the fireworks — which only lasted for about six minutes — even though some of the approximately 22,000 people who showed up for the event were already on their way out.
No text or other message was sent out alerting people that the show was merely paused, not canceled.
And an announcement was made from the stage that instructed people to leave because the fireworks would not happen. However, “That was not a decision made or authorized by the City,” according to a statement from Milstead shared with The N&O on Friday, July 5, 2024.
The fireworks vendor, Pyrotecnico, “experienced a malfunction a few minutes after the show began,” and the State Fire Marshal’s Office ended the show early. The fireworks display was supposed to last half an hour.
Previous issues with Raleigh’s Fourth of July display
In 2018, the city decided to move the fireworks show out of downtown to the State Fairgrounds and the then-PNC Arena, The N&O reported.
At that time, the city had been launching fireworks from different places in downtown, but people complained they could only see one display.
Construction and the changing skyline, along with traffic downtown, were reasons cited for the move out of the heart of Raleigh.
“The nature of a short, time-limited event placed considerable stress on the downtown street grid, resulting in congestion that limited access and contributed to significant traffic delays following the fireworks display,” according to a 2018 release.
The News & Observer journalists Richard Stradling and Anna Roman contributed reporting.
