Highland Park, News

Highland Park’s Fourth Fest could shift to the 3rd with parade, memorial ceremony on the 4th

Though trudging through the heart of winter, Highland Park officials are already setting their sights on the middle of summer.

Highland Park’s City Council, during both its Jan. 13 and Jan. 27 meetings, got an early look into staff’s plans for the town’s Independence Day activities.

City Manager Ghida Neukirch shared with councilmembers that the Park District of Highland Park is considering hosting its Fourth Fest on July 3 this year, as opposed to the traditional July 4 date.

The district event — if approved for July 3 — would be from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at The Preserve of Highland Park, per Neukirch. The event is a joint endeavor between the city and the park district, which confirmed that the change will be on a future Park Board agenda.

Irrespective of the date of Fourth Fest, the City of Highland Park is still planning its remembrance ceremony for July 4, officials said, to remember those impacted by the 2022 shooting. This year’s memorial event is set to take place at 9:30 a.m. inside Edgewood Middle School.

The annual parade will kick off at noon on the Fourth of July and will follow the same route as last year.

Based on the feedback from City Council, it appears unlikely, though, that the city’s Fourth of July festivities this year will include either a fireworks display or a drone show.

Looking for a grand finale

Officials discussed their July 4 options during a Jan. 27 committee of the whole session.

Councilmembers showed little interest in moving forward with a drone show, citing what they described as high costs for little return.

According to Neukirch, the city paid approximately $50,000 for the 10- to 12-minute drone show in 2023 that featured between 150-200 drones.

“As cool and unique as the drone show is, I think it’s an unbelievable amount of money that is really not all that additive to what’s already a great city event and I’d rather have that money for more events to be honest,” Mayor Nancy Rotering said.

Other members of the council also expressed concern about the “extraordinary cost” for “limited impact.”

The council was also hesitant to bring back a fireworks display for this year’s celebrations. Some members of the council did however show an interest in surveying the community to collect its feelings about potentially having fireworks some time in the future.

Councilmembers were rather united in the opinion that although they value the nostalgia and tradition of fireworks on the fourth, the adverse environmental impact of fireworks as well as the potential effects they may have on some community members outweigh, for now, the positives.

Several councilmembers did show interest in having a drone show every couple of years either around or on the Fourth of July but not making it a yearly tradition, at least for now.

Board member Andrés Tapia said he hopes the city can look into a “grand finale” of sorts to put an “exclamation mark at the end of the day.”

“I think we owe it to our town to have something memorable,” he said, applauding the community concert event the city hosted at Wolters Field in 2023.

City staffers are planning to discuss options with the park district for a finale-style event to end the town’s holiday celebrations.


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martin carlino
Martin Carlino

Martin Carlino is a co-founder and the senior editor who assigns and edits The Record stories, while also bylining articles every week. Martin is an experienced and award-winning education reporter who was the editor of The Northbrook Tower.

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