The Fourth of July is the biggest and busiest holiday for the city, and especially for the park. From 6:30am - midnight, the park is full of people and activities. The 5k is organized just like the rest of the park's programs, with registration flyers or online. But what about everything else? Who does the booths in the park? Who sets up the entertainment? How does a parade come together? You don't really think about it when you're sitting on the curb catching candy or waving from a float, but the local parks department is the wizard behind the curtain.
There are lots of requests that need to be filed with other government departments on top of rentals and purchases from local companies. To close State Street for the race and the parade, permission has to be given from UDOT (Utah Department of Traffic). To get jets to fly over at the parade start, a flyover request form has to be submitted to the DOD (Department of Defense). Local police stations are sent requests as well for the police motorcycles that lead the parade, but they also have a parade slot as well. Speakers for the 5k and the announcers during the parade are rented from a local radio station. We also have to pick up coupons, buy prizes, and buy things like banners with sponsor for the parade and magnetic signs for the cars of city officials in the parade.
The first activity on the Fourth is the 5k. Flyers are put out with the other programs, and we get a lot of returning racers and their families every year. Unlike the youth sport programs, the 5k is enormous! Every year it gains 100 runners and each runner gets a race bag and an entry into a raffle. The Parks Office gets in touch with local businesses, like Chik-fil-A, Eddie Bauer, Salt Lake Running Co, and Papa Murphy's. They supply coupons and flyers that I put in the 800+ race bags, along with the race shirt. Because of complaints that sizes ran out when doing a t-shirt table that was first-come-first-serve, we put a label on each race bag with the name and shirt size. When the shirts arrive, the conference room becomes an assembly line and everyone bands together to stuff the last of the race bags with coupons as well as put each label on a bag and the corresponding shirt size inside as well.
The day starts between 5-6am on the Fourth for set up of the racecourse--and if you can believe it, the Murray Park Avenue is already lined almost completely with the chairs of families that want to reserve spots for the parade. At the start line, timing equipment and speakers are set up. At the finish is the rest of the timing equipment, the lanes to keep people in finishing order, and all the booths/tables. There are tables for signing in, picking up fruit or bagels, pools of water bottles on ice, prizes, and the tents of alphabetized boxes for the race bags. We also had Home Depot and Sports Authority there doing activities and giving away coupons and prizes. One thing that is very important to remember to strategically place is garbage cans. If they aren't conveniently located in peoples' line of vision, Constitution Circle (the finish line) will be full of trash.
Usually, after the awards have been given to the top finishers in each category, there is a prize drawing. Like a raffle, everyone who entered has a chance to win. Because it was pouring rain all night before the race and drizzling while we were setting up, we instead told people that we would draw the names later and call the winners to come into our office to pick up the prizes at a later day. It was a good idea in that most people want to leave and see the parade which starts shortly after the race ends, but a bad idea in that those who do not retrieve their prizes leave our office filled with things like a giant stuffed dog and assorted Tupperware and t-shirts. I guess that they will be used for other events now.
By this time, the parade has started. Some of the entries write a request on their entry form on where they want to be in the parade. For example, city floats with royalty have to be at several different parades in the valley, and have to be placed accordingly so that they can try to make all of them on time. Another example would be a senior care center that had a float requested to be at the front so that they could finish early and get their seniors out of the sun. Other than those requests, parade order is decided by my supervisor. Bands and dance groups have to be spaced out, and the car clubs like Salt Lake County Raceways and Teraflex shouldn't be at the front, because they tend to hold up the parade. Each band involved is given $150--partly because people love bands in the parade and partly because bands don't get many chances to earn money. There is a committee of citizens (I don't remember how they're formed, but I believe they're local business owners) that have a packet of papers where they rate each float in categories. Winners are given an award and photos about a week or two after the parade.
When the parade ends, the games and entertainment begin. Each Recreation Coordinator has their own game booth for the kids, and the community also has an opportunity to sign up to have a booth. We had "fishing," a money finding game with coins in wood chips (like the kind you put in your hamster cage), and a balloon toss. I personally filled almost 400 water balloons, one by one, at a semi-functioning hose in the ground. It took at least four people: One to hold the hose, one to fill the balloons, one to hand over empty balloons to the person at the hose, and someone to tie the balloons. It was best when we had 2-3 guys tying balloons. It took us several hours, and all of those balloons were gone in a fraction of the time.
For entertainment, local music groups perform, a magician, and then a band at the end of the night before the fireworks. Because it was one of Murray City Power's big anniversaries, they chipped in money to help out with the fireworks. The fire department sometimes has to come in the day before and the day of to spray down the hillside because in the July heat, that dry grass is very flammable. Every grassy space in the park is filled for the fireworks--along the river, on the soccer field, on the softball field, the rugby field, the parking lot, and Ken Price baseball field. That's just in the park, though--the grass across the street at the junior high, library, high school, and the parking lot at Costco all fill up with people.
All in all, it was a very enlightening experience to be on the preparations side of the Fourth. I had no idea just how much went into making the park a wonderful place to spend time with your family. It makes me really proud of our city to see how much employees from all departments strive to make this city such a fun and safe place to live.
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