I dunno, Paul...looks like we got over 360,000 at this scruffy little city's riverfront last year:

(link...)

I'm thinking I've read before that Boomsday is the best attended event nationally on Labor Day.

Cincinnati has a much more attractive waterfront. Maybe we just have more rednecks?

I've read that it's the biggest show in the southeast, which I can believe. Not so sure about nationally.

We went with the kids two or three years back, for the first time in many, many years, and found the crowds to be frightening--especially after dark.

We arrived just before suppertime, but it appeared that most people had been there all day. Everyone was plenty drunk and there wasn't an inch of space anywhere to open a lawnchair, much less spread a blanket.

The entire time we were there, the four of us struggled to hold hands to avoid being separated, while my husband bulldozed a narrow path for us to walk. I kept telling the kids "Don't let go, don't let go."

As we headed back for the car that evening, we spoke with several other familes with kids who said they had been as nervous and uptight as we were, and that they'd never come back, with or without kids.

We won't either.

That was our experience with our kids also and is why we haven't been in several years.

Cincy draws half a million people for their fireworks but I don't think they're talking about the size of the crowd.

Someone (other than me) count the fireworks. We'll see if we can get a similar report from Cincinnati.

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

I quit going years ago and I don't have children. Being awash in drunken rednecks is not my idea of entertainment. The last time I went was when the 'new' South Knoxville bridge had just opened to limited traffic and we watched the show from that distance.

While we had a limited view of the festivities and, of course could not see my favorite, the waterfall from the Henley Street bridge, it was still fun. There were families with coolers of food and lawn chairs and it was not crowded. It probably is now. We were also far enough away from the source of the fireworks to make listening to the accompanying music more enjoyable.

Visit us at

The Home

down there and I've been to my last Boomsday. The crowd really gets rowdy and the kids start getting into each other's pants after dark and it is not an event any right mighted parent would want their children enduring. There's plenty of skuzzy people in East Tennessee who have no regard for themselves or their community and why the City of Knoxville wants to attract that crowd to their downtown environs in well beyond me.

There are lots of other bridges around East Tennessee that they could shoot that stuff off, why they want to trash our town is beyond me.

I'm sure the uber chamber has some way out economic impact calculations. I'm sure spikes in the sale of Skoal and Bud are well off the charts.

I haven't heard it just down the road a piece but Gino has been growling a lot.

The CSX dispatcher in Jacksonville is reporting that trespassers on the tracks downtown are causing traffic problems.

Visit us at

The Home

I moved here from Florida a couple years ago been to boomsday 2 years running, I have to say that you all are some uptight people you talk like there is just a bunch of drunk people walking around everywhere but all that it is that I see is alot of people kids and all having a good time. Never had a single incident come up either time that me and my family attended. It sounds kinda like racism to me with all the redneck talk and if you dont like the state stay out of it we really would rather not have you here. Keep your kids in your fascist and racist lifestyles teach them to be just like you. They will be good people for sure. Hope not too see you next year. O h and by the you can all piss off that is the mac of all firework shows.

You know, it is possible to enjoy the fireworks without participating in the festivities or complaining about them. Knoxville has several hills ideally suited for this purpose. You just have to have a return route scoped out and be ready to leave at the end of the finale.

____________________________________
"Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse."

Hey, most of us LIKE it here, Mikey.

I love it here. I was born and raised here. I'm not nuts over Boomsday, but hey, part of that is because I can't imagine anyone in their right mind putting Rhapsody in Blue on the same program with the musically wretched Rocky Top.

Visit us at

The Home

Yeah, the sentiment is great but the song is pretty bad.

Visit us at

The Home

and didn't this year, either. I love it - especially getting to hang with my funnel cake swilling, Bud slurping, Rocky Top singing kith and kin. Now that I have a young'un in tow, I have to slather on the sunblock and arrive extra early to build a perimeter, but such is parenthood.

There's plenty of skuzzy people in East Tennessee who have no regard for themselves or their community and why the City of Knoxville wants to attract that crowd to their downtown environs in well beyond me.

You know, it's real hard for me to read a line like that without hearing the voice of Jim Bakkus playing Thurston Howell III as the narrator.