Stadium of Fire
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The Stadium of Fire is annual event held in Provo, Utah at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the campus of Brigham Young University (BYU) on or near each July 4th, celebrated as the United States' Independence Day.
The event is the culmination of a broader week of celebrations called America's Freedom Festival.[1] The Stadium of Fire is intended as a patriotic extravaganza and features prominent musical performers (often including members of the Osmonds, who founded the event), comedians, dancers, stunt performers, tributes to military personnel and first responders and other events, along with one of the largest stadium fireworks show in the USA, all of which are televised internationally. The venue holds over 50,000 people and tends to sell most or all available seats for the Stadium of Fire, and many tens of thousands more crowd around the area to observe the fireworks.[2]
The Stadium of Fire has been held annually in its current form every year since 1980, with the exception of 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, when a televised best-of special was broadcast showing highlights from past events.
Stadium of Fire originated as the Freedom Festival Panorama. It took on its current format and name in 1980 after Alan Osmond and Merrill Osmond acquired control of the festival.[3]
In this era, the Osmands developed a number of businesses or other money-making events to recover from financial losses due to their father George Osmond's bad business decisions that left the family in deep debt.[4] Since 1980, the Stadium of Fire has become one of the largest Independence Day celebrations in the United States with super-star performers. Since 2004, it has been created and produced by Baruch Gayton Productions.[5]
At the 2024 Stadium of Fire event, a firework malfunction injured 26 people.[6]
