Ocean City Adds New Year’s Eve Fireworks At Northside Park

OCEAN CITY — There will be fireworks on New Year’s Eve uptown at Northside Park after all as resort officials this week approved a modified plan from a separate promoter to approve the show.

Last month, council approved a contract with Celebrations Fireworks to provide the popular pyrotechnic displays at Northside Park uptown on the Fourth of July and at the Inlet on the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve for the next three years. Celebrations Fireworks was one of three bidders for the contract, but the only one who bid on all three years.

One company did submit a bid for three years, but only for the New Year’s Eve show only, while another company only bid for fiscal year 2023 and not the entire three years desired by the town. The budgeted amount for a single year was $108,000 for three displays in 2023. Celebrations Fireworks’ bid for the entire three years was $357,000, or $116,000 in the first two years and $125,000 in the third year.

However, one casualty of the new contract was a proposed fireworks show on New Year’s Eve at Northside Park to close Winterfest of Lights and the end of 2022. As a result, the only New Year’s Eve fireworks show planned for later this month was at the beach downtown near the Inlet with drive-in movies, a DJ and other events to draw people into the downtown area on the holiday.

Fireworks vendors have had some reservations about shooting the displays from the long pier at the west end of Northside Park for variety of reasons. Complicating the issue for Northside Park is the fact Winterfest of Lights would not be over until just before the proposed fireworks show, making the soccer field or other open areas unavailable. The six-inch shells used by the approved vendor would require a 600-foot radius, which would not be possible with Winterfest still winding down.

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