APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – While many minds are on Christmas and New Years, the city of Appleton is trying to revive its popular Independence Day celebration after the Appleton Jaycees stepped down from running it in 2023.
The city is asking for organizations to submit a proposal to run the event.
Some of the responsibilities include managing the 20-minute fireworks display, kids activities, music, food and beverages, parking and much more.
“It was such a great event for so many years, everybody looked forward to it. So many people came to it, thousands of people. I’ve been told up to 10,000 people have entered the park that day,” Appleton Director of Parks and Recreation Dean Gazza said.
While the city of Appleton is looking for a new event organizer, they say at minimum, the fireworks show will still go on at Memorial Park — but Gazza said bringing the full-scale event back is a top priority.
“We could just see the outcry, you know, that’s going to happen — the concern for not having this event — and so that told us that we definitely have to make sure we get this back,” Gazza said.
The city seeks a new event organizer after it was run by the Appleton Jaycees for decades. FOX 11 spoke with former President of the Appleton Jaycees Ron Tusler, who was in charge of the fireworks event in 2013 and 2014. He said the Jaycees are now defunct and stopped running the 4th of July event after 2023 because of a lack of volunteers.
“There’s a lot of coordination with running the fireworks. I mean, we were spending about $65,000 to $85,000 in one day. And at the same time, we also had to have income coming in and we got a little bit of money from Festival [Foods] but, a lot of it was selling brats and beer,” Tusler said. “It’s sad because they did it for over 80 years.”
The Independence Day celebration is happening July 3, 2025. Right now, only three organizations have expressed interest in taking on the event. If you are interested, you must submit a sealed proposal by Jan. 13, 2025, to Appleton Parks and Recreation.
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