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Gadsden mayor says nearly 30,000 attended Fourth of July events; city planning larger celebration next year
Summary
Mayor Craig Ford said Gadsden drew about 30,000 people to its Fourth of July activities, credited staff and partners for the show, and said city leaders plan a larger, free concert to follow next year’s fireworks.
Mayor Craig Ford said Wednesday that nearly 30,000 people attended Gadsden’s Fourth of July events and that city leaders are planning a larger celebration next year. Ford delivered the update in a recorded Mayor’s Minute.
Ford said the city used a private service that can estimate crowd size from geofenced data and that the results showed “almost 30,000 people” across Riverside Park, Broad Street, Highway 411 and areas under the bridge toward Cherokee County. "We had almost 30,000 people," he said.
The mayor thanked public works, police, fire personnel and event partners for the weekend. He named John Moore and the AMP, Janet Terrence and her team for Riverside Park concerts, and Kay Moore at DGI for First Friday programming.
Ford said organizers are planning to add a free, larger-name concert on Albert Raines Boulevard (Highway 411) to follow the fireworks next year and that the city has begun contacting bands. He described the concert as intended to start immediately after the fireworks show.
The announcement came as the mayor also highlighted other summer programming and thanked city crews and outside partners for logistics and public safety work.
Ford framed the crowd estimate and the concert plan as city preparations; he did not provide a date or a confirmed artist for the proposed concert, and he did not present a formal, council-approved plan during the remarks.
The Mayor’s Minute was a recorded update by Mayor Craig Ford, not a public hearing or city-council vote; Ford spoke for the mayor’s office and no formal city action on the future concert or crowd-monitoring approach was announced in the statement.
