Depot Street Park and The Depot restaurant, shown in the distance, are hosting a fireworks show and New Year’s countdown Saturday night.
Mitchell Kirk | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD – A free fireworks show and New Year’s countdown are coming to the city’s downtown on Dec. 31.
Fireworks will be shot off of the roof of The Depot restaurant at 240 W. Mill Street for the countdown with a larger fireworks display to take place in a nearby green space next to Depot Street Park.
The event is sponsored by the Hancock County Tourism and Visitor Center along with the collaboration of The Depot restaurant and the Greenfield Parks Department. Frankton-based BurgerHaus Productions is producing the event.
Brigette Cook Jones, executive director of the Hancock County Tourism and Visitor Center, said she’s always wanted to have some kind of New Year’s event in the county. She remembered going to downtown Indianapolis with her husband a couple years ago, where Visit Indy dropped an IndyCar from a crane, putting a Circle City spin on NYC’s annual NYE ball drop.
“It was something different that drew us downtown,” Jones said.
She recalled speaking with several fireworks companies at an Indiana Association of Festivals and Fairs Convention and got to thinking whether it would be possible to shoot fireworks off of The Depot. The restaurant opened about a year and a half ago after renovations completed in the former grain elevator first built over a century ago.
BurgerHaus Productions was interested in New Year’s Eve fireworks there, as was The Depot, and the idea eventually got all the necessary safety sign-offs as well.
The fireworks for the countdown will be shot off not from the highest roof on The Depot, but rather its second highest.
“The whole goal is like an IndyCar being dropped from a crane – we’re doing something super cool that people will want to come to Greenfield to see,” Jones said. “I don’t think anyone in the state is firing off fireworks from a grain elevator.”
Thomas Moore, a co-owner of The Depot, agreed.
“What better way to bring in the new year than shooting fireworks off a 1906 grain elevator?” he said.
Low temperatures for Saturday are forecast in the 40s with a chance of rain, but the fireworks are slated to blast regardless of weather.
There is no fee to watch the fireworks, but Cook encourages attendees to arrive early to get a parking spot and get to the park in time for the countdown. Santa’s Village and the light display will remain up in Depot Street Park as well.
“Wear your crazy hats and your goofy glasses and light-up stuff and just celebrate bringing in the new year at Depot Street Park,” Jones said.
Jones also encourages those coming out to grab dinner at one of the city’s restaurants, several of which are staying open late on Saturday.
“We hope maybe this will turn into a potential annual event,” she said.
