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Whether you plan to enjoy the Independence Day festivities down at Gas Works or kick back at home, everyone in the ’hood should be aware that about 40,000 people will be descending on the park beginning in the afternoon of the 4th of July, impacting traffic and park use for us all. As in past years, Amazon will be sponsoring the event. Reserved seating is available at a cost, but free spots are still a thing, too. Note that there appears to be a new wrinkle this year: unless you have a ticket for one of those reserved seats, no one will be admitted after 8 pm “due to capacity restrictions.”

What’s Up Beside Fireworks?

While festivities culminate with the fireworks display after dark, events and entertainment begin mid-afternoon and stretch through the day. Beer gardens will be available to slake your thirst, and of course there will be food. Live music will be performed throughout the day on a stage immediately north of the gas works. And there are also family activities (All-American Games, as they are calling them). Reserved seating is available ($60), although when I wrote this article, on June 27, all the seats were showing as “Unavailable/sold.” So I’m not sure if they were not yet available for sale at that time, or all gone. The majority of the park, including the entire Kite Hill area, is free, open seating. (Remember that the fireworks will be launched from a barge in the middle of the lake, so if you sit on the north side of the hill, you may have an obstructed view.) A map of what’s where appears at the bottom of this article.

Permitted/ Prohibited Items: No Anchovies, Please

Actually, you can bring anchovies, as many as you’d like. But in addition to some obvious nos (weapons, drugs, alcohol), here are some less obvious things you should leave behind: drones; sparklers, fireworks, or incendiary materials of any kind; all noisemakers (including megaphones, air horns, sirens, whistles); laser lights and pointers; animals and pets (excluding service animals); footballs, frisbees, baseballs, and other projectiles; helium balloons; enclosed or walled tents (open canopies okay, but must be taken down before the fireworks); gas or charcoal BBQs; glass containers.

Folks bringing in bikes, skateboards, etc. will be expected to leave those items at the event’s secure Bike Corral. There will be bag checks for those bringing in bags (clear bag not required), but if you don’t have a bag, you don’t need to wait in the long line with the folks that do.

Getting There and Street Closures

This is our neighborhood’s largest event, attracting tens of thousands of people, and many will come from afar by car to witness it. Traffic is guaranteed. I could not find any specific information on parking or traffic flow for this event on the Seattle Police website or the Seafair site, but I can tell you from experience what to expect. Early arrivals will be fortunate enough to snag street-side parking. Eventually, this will give way to lots of useless orbiting as cars search for spaces that no longer exist. Sometime around 5 PM or so, when it’s clear that all parking in the area is gone, police stationed along 40th Street may close down all the north-south streets to southbound traffic. If you live south of 40th, you will still be able to get in by telling the police you live in the area. Once the fireworks go off, though, forget about that. All traffic will move only outbound from Gas Works for about an hour until the area is cleared.

Pro-tip: walk or take a bike. Secure bike parking is available at Gas Works in the Bike Corral for free. If you must drive, I suggest parking north of 40th and walking down. That way, you won’t get trapped in the outbound traffic after the show. Planning to be clever and paddle to the park? Think again: security will turn you away.

Schedule of Events

• 3:00PM – 5:00PM – All-American Games: classic fair-style family events, including sack races, pie eating contest, tug-of-war, and balloon toss.
• 5:00PM – 6:00PM – Brittany Collins
• 6:00PM – 6:30PM – DJ Grayson Rose
• 6:30PM – 7:30PM – Lindstrom & The Limit
• 7:30PM – 8:00PM – DJ Grayson Rose
• 8:00PM – 9:00PM – Navy Band
• 9:00PM – Live broadcast begins on KONG TV
• 9:00PM – 10:15PM – DJ Grayson Rose
• 10:20PM – Fireworks Celebration
• 10:45PM – Park Closes

More schedule details are available here.