Fireworks to be downtown again this Fourth of July

The Wichita Parks Foundation is bringing back downtown fireworks for the Fourth of July this year, along with food and music in the evening. The foundation also has some half-price tickets to the Wingnuts game that night that it is selling.

Last year’s downtown celebration of the Fourth started during the day with the Slide the City water slide over the Lewis Street Bridge. But people mainly want to attend a community event in the evening, said Stacey Hamm, marketing director for the foundation.

So this year, events will start at 5 p.m. with music, food trucks and drinks on the Hyatt Lawn, 400 W. Waterman. BOB-FM radio will play music from 5 to 6:30 p.m., and then the Astronauts will take the stage to play at 7. The Bar’s Open and the Budweiser beer trailer will also be set up.

Fireworks will start at about 9:45 p.m. on the Arkansas River. Some of the fireworks will be aerial, but there also will be two barges set up on the river between the Douglas Avenue and Lewis Street bridges shooting off fireworks. Bleachers will be set up on the Lewis Street Bridge to provide some seating, and the higher up you are on the bleachers, the better your view will be of the barge fireworks, Hamm said.

People also can stay on the Hyatt Lawn to watch the fireworks or sit on the river banks.

The Wichita Wingnuts will play a 6:05 game against the Laredo Lemurs, and the parks foundation has some half-price tickets for sale for $5, available in the office on the 11th floor of City Hall. If people are in Lawrence-Dumont Stadium at the time of the fireworks, they will be able to see the aerial display, but not the fireworks fired from the barges, Hamm said.

This story was originally published June 10, 2016 at 3:33 PM with the headline "Fireworks to be downtown again this Fourth of July."