Joliet fireworks’ return to Memorial Stadium deemed a success; expected back in 2024

The Fourth of July fireworks show in Joliet will stay at Memorial Stadium – at least for another year after a successful staging of the show Tuesday.

“It was great - a good turnout,” Park District Executive Director Brad Staab said. “It was a great night and good to have it back in the stadium.”

The stadium was full, and Jefferson Street was lined with people as it had been in past years for the fireworks show, Staab said.

Fireworks were brought back to the stadium, the host location since the 1950s, after a two-year hiatus in which they had been moved to Joliet Junior College because of park officials’ concerns that the pyrotechnics could damage new artificial turf at the Inwood Sports Complex baseball fields directly south of the stadium.

“We moved them farther south to get them farther from the fields,” Joliet Park District Executive Director Brad Staab said Wednesday. “I think we found a new spot.”

Staab said the park district would welcome the fireworks back again next year.

The new spot is about 500 feet south of the fireworks launching location used in past years when they were launched from the baseball fields, which formerly were made of natural grass. The new location is on the grass soccer fields.

The park district rejected the idea of using the soccer fields as a new launching site when the Fourth of July fireworks were moved away from the stadium in 2021.

“We had some concerns,” Staab said of the previous reluctance to shoot off fireworks from the soccer fields. But the new launching location worked fine with no damage to playing fields, he said.

The park district as in past years provides the location for the Fourth of July event but does not fund or oversee the fireworks display.

Oversight and funding for the fireworks for decades was controlled by a volunteer citizens group called the Joliet July 4th Celebration Committee. That changed in 2021 when the city of Joliet took over funding and responsibility for the show.

“I would expect we would continue to do it that way in the future,” interim City Manager Rod Tonelli said.