WOOSTER Sitting on lawn chairs in the soccer fields and swatting at mosquitoes as explosions light up the nighttime sky is a seemingly age-old tradition in the city.
Usually between 3,000 and 5,000 attendees watch fireworks every year here, and this year is projected to be no different, said Gil Ning, the event s annual organizer and president of the Wooster Fireworks Foundation.
Soon after canceling the July 4 fireworks in 2020 due to COVID-19 concerns, Ning promised to bring it in 2021. And he intends to keep that promise.
Just as Ning began planning this year s event, supply chain issues, soaring fireworks prices and a lack of funding threatened to silence the much anticipated colorful explosions.
Wooster s Fourth of July fireworks will explode back onto the scene this year in what could be the city s largest public gathering since the start of the coronavirus Pandemic last March.
Somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 spectators are expected to set up lawn chairs throughout the city for the visual display, with approximately 2,000 anticipated at the Wooster Soccer Fields, said Gil Ning, president of the Wooster Firework Foundation.
The Independence Day event begins at 5 pm with fireworks set to ignite at 10 p.m. It will feature food from local eateries, seating and live music at the soccer fields, Ning said. It s a giant step toward getting back to normalcy after what happened last year, he said. I think this will probably be the single largest gathering, post-coronavirus.