Batavia Fireworks To Be Rescheduled This Summer After Computer Crash

BATAVIA, IL — Batavia residents hoping to enjoy a July 4 tradition on Tuesday night were left disappointed after the city’s annual fireworks show was canceled at the last minute without much explanation from officials.

The show was called off on Tuesday night, with officials announcing the last-minute cancelation in a social media post.

“The Batavia Fireworks and Sky Concert is produced each year by a group of volunteers who raise donations throughout the year to fund the show,” reads a post on the city’s Facebook page that was written around 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday. “We are awaiting word from the organizers about what went wrong and if there will be a reschedule of tonight’s show.”

On Wednesday morning, the city posted an update saying it is working with local fireworks organizers to reschedule the show. However, city officials said that the display would not take place on Wednesday night and that the city expected to have further information on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Susan Stark of the Batavia Fireworks Committee told Patch in an email that the fireworks were just getting ready to start when the committee's chairman, Mark Davis, announced that the show would not go on. Stark said that she was told the computer system crashed and its backup system also failed, forcing the cancellation of the show. The computer system is not internet or cloud-based, officials said.

Stark told Patch in an email that the company that provides the fireworks show said that it used the same computer system it did 24 hours earlier at another site, where the system worked fine. She said that cell phone outages at the site in Batavia on Tuesday night did not affect the computer system or cause the failure, and that city officials are working to reschedule the show for later this summer.

Stark said that city officials met on Wednesday morning with other members of the organizing committee and representatives from the pyrotechnics company that was to have put on the show about what led to the cancelation of Tuesday's fireworks show.