o Donors contributed more than 500 tickets for the fireworks show for people in need. Most were distributed to local nonprofits, but there were several at each gate. Event staffers gave them out when it was evident that a family couldn’t afford the $7 adult ticket. “One family came to a gate with a glass jar full of change,” said Alishia Topper of the Fort Vancouver National Trust. “We told her people had donated tickets, and it brought her to tears.”
Organizers of the Fourth of July fireworks show at Fort Vancouver liked what they saw Sunday night — and it wasn’t just the dazzling display of pyrotechnics.
It’s the not-so-dazzling stuff — the nuts and bolts of putting on a major civic event — that will determine the future of the Fourth at the Fort.
While a decision on the 2011 show won’t be made for a couple of weeks, things were looking encouraging on Monday morning, said Elson Strahan, president of the Fort Vancouver National Trust.
“Unless some dramatic substantial element surprises us, I would feel confident the community can look forward to Independence Day 2011,” Strahan said.
Monday morning’s evaluation was a gut-reaction sort of thing, based on anecdotal input. Organizers are still waiting for the attendance figures, as well as other key numbers like expenses and income.
“In terms of numbers, the consensus from lots of folks was that the crowd was the same,” Strahan said. “The difference was that were many more families, and they were spread throughout the entire site instead of concentrated at one spot.”
Nobody has ever put a reliable figure on that crowd estimate, often pegged at around 60,000. There will be an actual attendance count for this year’s show, the first time organizers set up gates and charged an entry fee.
“With tickets, we will have a much better handle, but we won’t know what it is for a few days,” Strahan said.
Sunday marked the return of the fireworks show after budget problems forced the event to go dark in 2009. Organizers are awaiting other numbers to see if the event can be self-sustaining.
“The final numbers aren’t in for expenses or income, but we couldn’t be more pleased” about how the show came off, Strahan said: “Particularly when you’ve redone everything. Everything was modified or launched as a new element.”
Actually, Strahan said, about the only thing Sunday’s show had in common with previous events was the date.
Cutbacks by local agencies meant that event organizers had to fill some support services.
“We took on new areas of responsibilities like traffic management,” Strahan said, and American Medical Response stepped forward with paramedic services.
More than 300 volunteers participated, including some community groups that showed up for litter-cleaning duty Monday in exchange for contributions to their organizations.
Other cleanup and takedown chores were best left to the professionals, like picking up the 235 portable restrooms that had been rented from Schulz Clearwater Sanitation.
The 70-gallon tank was pumped dry before each unit was loaded on a truck and driven back to Tualatin, Ore.
That’s a lot of porta-potties, but it’s not the biggest event on the company’s calendar.
“The Portland Marathon gets 320 of these,” said Dale Perkins, who was part of the Schulz Clearwater retrieval effort.
At the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site visitors center, some other items needed to be picked up — like a credit card, two out-of-town driver’s licenses and a couple of cell phones.
One license is from Las Vegas and the other is from Auburn, said volunteer Marilyn Moore, who has been minding the lost-and-found box at the visitors center.
“I tried to Google the names on the licenses, but I couldn’t come up with a phone number,” she said.
Moore said she’ll wait another day or so, and then “I’ll probably mail them to the addresses on the licenses.”
