In a surprise announcement, Firefighters Freedom Fest is back on
MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — The Madison County Fire Department held a press conference Thursday morning to make a big announcement.
It did not take much time for the public to make their voices heard in regards to their sadness and disappointment that the Madison County Fire Department would be canceling their Freedom Festival for this upcoming July 4th.
Fire Chief Eric Turner started off the press conference speaking on this.
“We made an announcement back in March that we were not going to be able to continue the Firefighters Freedom Festival,” Chief Turner said. “When that happened, we were really surprised at the phone calls we got. I think the Mayor got some phone calls, we all got phone calls, and we were pleasantly surprised with the support we were getting.”
A lack of funds is what caused the initial cancellation. However, Chief Turner said that they were able to find some new sponsors and made a big announcement.
“We wanted to let the public know that we are going to move forward with it and that’s because we had a lot of supporters come out and supporting us with this effort. So we are pleased to make that announcement,” Turner said.
It was said at the press conference that somewhere between 8 to 12 thousand people regularly attend this event each year. Chief Turner says that it costs a lot of money to put on this event for the community and it gets more expensive each year. That is the reason why it was initially canceled.
“We started this thing 13 years ago and everything has inflated since then,” Turner said. “Prices have all come up and we were just struggling to get enough money to put this thing on. We didn’t want to go backwards from what we were doing. We wanted to at least stay the same as far as the show we were putting on, the rides for the kids, and the different things.”
From when this originally started to now, Turner says the cost has almost doubled.
Since this event started, the fire department says they have seen a decrease in July 4th activity related calls.
The free event takes place at the McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport.
For more news in the Madison County area, click here.
