Red, White & Boom

[Doug Loudenback]

I went with my kids for about an hour or so tonight ... didn't stay for the fireworks since my daughter had to get up early in the morning for work. The 5 of us milled and looked around but we certainly did not go to every part of the vast spread-out space that various venues were at.

That's my 1st criticism: it was way too spead out. The distance from the parking area ($5 to park wasn't bad) to where a small and large band stage were set up had to have been 7-9 blocks, depending on where your car was parked. See below.



We walked about half-way to the band stages but decided against walking across the grass the rest of the way (too many mosquitos). We hadn't intended to make an evening of it, anyway.

There seemed to be lots of cars parked but it was hard to say how many people were there ... it was so spread out ... very "uncrowded" ... so if you're wanting to rub elbows in a "dense" sort of way (like Bricktown, for example), that didn't happen. Of course, it would have been different where the audience was gathered for the performance going on that we could hear "a few blocks" away.

Plenty of security was present. It cost $3 to get a snow-cone-like cherry thing ... not bad and it was a full cup with lots of jucie-juice on the ice! There were drink and very modest food places scattered around (nothing fancy at all ... don't think that it's going to be like the food you get at the Arts Festival, 'cause it doesn't come close).

Not much to do, that I saw ... there was a children's area with a few rides (like a Tilt-a-Whirl) and climbing and other such things, but we didn't go there. We probably got about a block's distance from it.

I'm glad we left when we did (about 20 minutes before the fireworks) because it would have not been fun getting out of the airpark onto Western ... the only point of ingress/egress, and one-lane each way at that.

I may go again because I think it would be fun seeing the symphony outside ... but my wife might not be up to walking 14-16 blocks (both ways) for the pleasure. If there were a heck of a lot of trams (even if you'd have to pay for the ride) that would negate that problem, but there weren't. I saw just a few, and they didn't carry very many people at all.

The grassy areas were mowed nicely and there was no mud or even soft smushy lawn-type-feel anywhere I walked. But, take some bug spray.

I took my camera but found nothing picture-worthy so I didn't take any pics.

That's about all I have to say. I'm glad the event got started, and it does have potential, but it clearly ain't ready for prime time just yet, in my opinion.

[John]

I can't believe they're charging for parking out there...

[metro]

Are you serious? Wow, no kidding, I thought parking would be free, especially for such a new event with plenty of parking.

[metro]

FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT IN THE KNOW:

Red, White and Boom!
Independence Day Festival



Link here for Schedule


Through the generosity of the Inasmuch Foundation, The Oklahoma City Philharmonic is presenting a free concert located at the Oklahoma City Downtown Airpark, 1701 S. Western, downtown Oklahoma City, on July 3, 2007.

“The Philharmonic has long had a strong desire to present a free holiday concert downtown. Thanks to our friends at Inasmuch Foundation and Brewer Entertainment, we'll be able to showcase the great potential for large-scale free public concerts for everyone in the heart of downtown. This is long overdue and Oklahoma City deserves it. You won't want to miss this event.” said Eddie Walker, the Philharmonic’s Executive Director. The gates open at 4:00 pm and all through the afternoon, live music will fill the air as ensembles from the Philharmonic perform. At 8:45 pm the Philharmonic, under the direction of Music Director Joel Levine, will take the stage with Broadway singers Kelli O’Hara and Mike Eldred headlining this evening of audience favorites. After the concert, Oklahoma City's largest fireworks display of 2007 will light up the night sky.

Three Days of Fun at a Great Location!

Located just south of the Oklahoma River with a scenic view of the downtown skyline, the Downtown Airpark offers an extraordinary site for a 3-day celebration of Independence. July 2-4 will see the Downtown Airpark full of performances, food, fun kid's activities and much more. “We feel like our capitol city should have the state’s biggest and best 4th of July celebration. Since this is the 100th year anniversary for the state of Oklahoma combined with the long standing tradition of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and a spectacular fireworks display, it is a win, win situation for the people and community of Oklahoma City . The riverfront and its new development and growth is the future of the city of Oklahoma City and we want to start it off with a BANG and set the precedence for the years to come,” said Chris Clifton, Director of Operations/Marketing for Brewer Entertainment.


***



Red, White and Boom! "On the River"
Event Schedule
July 2nd
Gate opens at 4:00pm
FREE ADMISSION

Rock and Roll Reunion on the River
Hosted by Ronnie Kaye
Blood Sweat and Tears w/ special guest Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night
Mike Black and the Stingrays
Squatty and the Bottys
Jim Edgar and the Roadrunners
Fireworks

July 3rd
Gate opens at 4:00pm
FREE ADMISSION

Patriotic Pops on the River
Live music throughout the afternoon
8:45 pm concert
OKC Philharmonic with Kelli O'Hara & Mike Eldred
Joel Levine, conductor
Oklahoma City's Largest Fireworks Display



July 4th
Gate opens at 2:00pm
FREE ADMISSION

KKNG Red Dirt on the River
Jack Ingram
Aaron Watson
Cory Morrow
Mike McClure
Mickey and the Motorcars
Bleu Edmondson
Ryan Bales
Plainview
West 51
Plus more TBA
Fireworks

[johnnyboyokc]

it was so spread out cause of the rain.........you could only utilize the runways on Sunday........but doug hope you were there on the 3rd it was awsome.......kinda crazy but when your dealing with 15000 its hard.....everybody come back on the 4th its a new venue and I think it has a lot of potential

[ksearls]

Anybody go last night?

[Doug Loudenback]

johnnyboyokc was obviously there. I asked my wife if she was up to the long hot march to get to the concert stage, and she declined ... frankly, I wasn't feeling like that much of a walk, either!

Glad to hear there was a good reason to have the stuff so spread out, johnnyboy. I would have loved to hear the symphony ... maybe next year. If 15,000 attended on the 3rd, do you know what attendance was on the 2nd (my birthday!)?

[CCOKC]

My husband and I went last night. The Philharmonic was great. The weather cooperated and the crowd was quite large. I am sure Joel Levine was happy, I'm sure that he hasn't had a crowd that big before. I think this could really become a large event. I loved the fireworks on the river. I would really like to see a permanent stage as part of the core to shore with a great big open space for many more people and bring more music like this to the greater OKC population. I think the parking was a problem. My husband and I parked offsite and walked in. There was only one way in to the airpark and the line of cars was very long. I think the sooner we have some kind of public trans down there the better. You really can't fathom how large of an area the Core to Shore area encomposses until you walk it.

[speakintruth72]

The whole thing was thoroughly disappointing. The event was billed as an Independence Day celebration and, because of the music selections, it was anything but. I came to hear Sousa marches and patriotic songs that we usually only hear about once a year. Instead, we heard Disney ballads and had to hear singers - that I've never heard of - tell us about their accomplishments and where they were going to be singing next.

The worst was the performance of the Star-Spangled Banner. That was, without a doubt, the most offensive rendition of our national anthem I have ever heard. It was a performance instead of it being a song where we all could stand united and sing our loyalty to our country.

The entire performance involving the conductor and the singers were beyond self-indulgent (i.e. the use of a harmonica instead of the piccolos in Stars & Stripes Forever - they might as well feature a jug band). They seemed to be very impressed with themselves and all I wanted hear was the 1812 Overture and watch fireworks, which were spectacular.

The conductor made a big deal about always wanting to have a concert outdoors. He treated the concert as if it were his own little toy instead of giving the people what they wanted...some good old American patriotism. It was like going to a concert on Dec. 20 and hearing 5 Christmas songs out of a selection of 20.

I absolutely will not be going back next year.

BTW, the mariachi band opening act was ridiculous. Hearing them play while trekking 1/2 mile toward the stage was the least patriotic I have ever felt in my life.

[Nixon7]

Way too spread out. Didn't get to hear Jack Ingram play 'love you' at the end (im assuming he did).....somewhat disappointing. We came over from the redhawks about 9:30 to check this out and got eaten alive on our mile hike through the fields. Oh, and it was way, way spread out. We will be staying in Bricktown or where ever in the future...oh, and getting out wasn't exactly fun...

[Turanacus]

the downtownokc.com email i got about the red, white, and boom celebration didn't say anything about bringing a bullet proof vest for protection, it should have - it was little Compton out there last night.

[Yamaguchigirl]

the downtownokc.com email i got about the red, white, and boom celebration didn't say anything about bringing a bullet proof vest for protection, it should have - it was little Compton out there last night.

Just curious, do you mean (as you say) that the Red, White and Boom (at the Downtown Airpark) was a "little Compton" or are you referring to Bricktown?

[Misty]

I went yesterday for a while and agree, WAY TOO SPREAD OUT! We were going to get some food, then found out we needed tickets. By the time we found the ticket booth we were so far past the food booth we were interested in that we just skipped it. We would have spent 3-4 times more than we actually did had it been more convenient. We were on the bike and left pretty early, we didn't want to have to deal with the traffic mess. There is no way I would have gone in a car. The bands were good and there were lots of port-o-potties.

[metro]

I drove by last night with my wife, but didn't park due to it being spread out. I did think it was a lot nicer than most were describing it. There were tons of people there and it had more amenities than I thought it would. It appeared they had a decent amount of food stands as well as rides/kids activities. The band stage also looked nice from Western Ave. I hope everyone doesn't get discouraged from Year 1 and realize that this event still needs support to grow into the HUGE event this could and should be. The river has so much potential. We need to support events like this so we get development faster along the river such as an ampitheatre, condo mid-rises, mixed-use developments, etc. I do see why the parking was a problem, but also you have to keep in mind, it is along a curvy part of the river, and you can't change that. Not to mention there were at least 15,000 people out last night, so you have to have land big enough to accomodate many vehicles. Perhaps one day in time, maybe a parking garage will be constructed like downtown, but until then, it will be more spread out due to surface parking.

[Doug Loudenback]

I drove by last night with my wife, but didn't park due to it being spread out. I did think it was a lot nicer than most were describing it. There were tons of people there and it had more amenities than I thought it would. It appeared they had a decent amount of food stands as well as rides/kids activities. The band stage also looked nice from Western Ave.

Actually, I thought that it did look better from a distance ... but from a distance you don't (I didn't) really get a perception of how it would be "close up and personal" and/or how much darned walking would be involved.

Even you only did a "drive-by"

I drove by last night with my wife, but didn't park due to it being spread out.

So there you are!

As for amenities, aside from lots of porta-potties, I was disappointed in them ... nothing special at all (at least that I saw) by the way of outdoor food offerings (I am probably spoiled by the amenities like those at the Downtown and/or Paseo Arts Festivals). Maybe that got better on days 2 and 3, I don't know.

As I said, I'm glad that the event got started and I think that it has potential ... but some serious changes are needed for the event to begin to realize it. I'll be there again next year for at least one of the 3 nights but for it to be more than 1 will take some changes.

[xd0nn4x]

Hi im new to the site, but i wanted to say this event was a big disappointment, i didnt have alot of cash on me, and figured o 5 bucks parking not to bad, then my brother wanted to play with the inflatables, but 10 dollars? for all that? i thought this was a free event? I understand paying for food, but this was the only activity there, there was nothing for adults to do but watch the crappy bands talk about their lives, sure i would care if i knew who the bands were, you couldnt hear them at all, mosquitoes attacked me and my baby, people were right up to me and smoking? why would you smoke next to an infant? thats just rude in my opinion, they had a coke thingy to play on but we got kicked out cause it was for the "VIP's" to play with, all in all crappy event will never go again.

[Easy180]

**The fireworks went off about 11:05 p.m. despite being scheduled to begin half an hour earlier. The mix-up occurred because of a contract between event organizer Brewer Entertainment and country singer Jack Ingram that required Ingram to play before the fireworks show.

Brewer Entertainment owner Jim Brewer said he panicked Wednesday when he realized the start times of Ingram's set and the fireworks were going to conflict.**

Umm...Don't have any promotion experience, but I would think the first thing I would check would be the set list to make sure everyone was done before the fireworks show was to begin

11:00 on a worknight is pretty ridiculous

[jbrown84]

Well here's what happened.

Apparently this fireworks show replaced the one they used to do at Bricktown.

So I went over there with my friends about 10:00. It was packed. We didn't know when the fireworks were supposed to start. At about 10:20, the Redhawks show started, but it was inside the ballpark and we could hardly see it. We waited for the REAL show to start, and nothing happened. When the Redhawks show finished around 10:40, everybody started leaving, so we went back to my apartment at the Park Harvey. Then we heard fireworks later and realized we'd missed something.

Huge screwup on somebody's part, because Bricktown was pretty much empty by then.

[ksearls]

Jbrown,

It was two separate events. Bricktown had a show that they did with the Redhawks in Bricktown; Red, White and Boom had its own show at the river. I don't think it was ever intended to be able to see both at once.

[jbrown84]

What I mean is that there has always been a show in Bricktown that you didn't have to go to the game to see well. That didn't happen this year, or if it did--it also didn't start til very late and LONG after everyone had left.

[okclee]

This doesn't make sense to me.

Downtown Okc inc. needs to concentrate on one show and if there are other shows nearby in bricktown or downtown they all need to work together so that we get one really big awesome event , instead of two or three events that are dissapointing.

[ksearls]

We (DOKC) are out of the 4th of July business. We have not produced the event for two years. We instead concentrate on our month long Downtown in December celebration. It was getting harder and harder for us to find sponsors for a one day event that never made everybody happy and we lost a good amount of money the last year we did it.

[johnnyboyokc]

first of all you can notice that there is no support in btown.......when brewer ent leaves, nothing is first class, dont you agree? Kim we dont need dokc to produce..........last year was still a success...the frontage tax still isnt enough.......

[johnnyboyokc]

not frontage but, BID

[johnnyboyokc]

DOKC should be in every business that promotes okc.......dont ya think