PEORIA, Ill. — Organizers of Red, White, and Boom have decided not to hold the event on the Fourth of July, as scheduled.
With uncertainty looming over how long restrictions on large gatherings because of COVID-19 will last, the decision was made to postpone the event.
Midwest 360 is the main coordinating entity. General Manager Mike Wild said the makeup date was to be determined.
“The reality of it is, we need more visibility to determine whether we can have the event at all this year,” he said.
“We don’t want to say we’re not going to have it. We’re going to keep the options open to potentially do it later in the year.”
In terms of what “later in the year” could hypothetically mean, Wild was hesitant to pinpoint specifics.
“The thought had been tossed out about Labor Day Weekend possibly being an option for the event, but we don’t know if that actually could happen or not,” he said.
“There are some other things going on on the Riverfront that weekend we’d have to work around, but the reality of it is, nobody knows what the situation is going to be at that point.”
Event decision makers held a meeting Thursday, the day Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s original stay-at-home order was scheduled to expire.
Now that the order’s been extended through May 30, Wild said they’ll probably wait until the middle of the summer to make a final call.
“Ironically, probably around the Fourth of July is going to be a good time to actually make a decision as to whether or not we can have the event later in the year,” he remarked.
Wild surmised if the event is able to be held later in 2020, the events that typically surround the fireworks party, such as live musical entertainment, will probably not occur.
