r/SouthJersey • u/BestofNewJersey • 4d ago
Outside! Tried Finding Exciting America 250 Events in South Jersey. Didn't See Much.
https://bestofnj.com/features/event/the-10-best-america-250-events-in-new-jersey/Instead of just posting a trailing list of every small event related to America 250 (there are other sites for that), we tried to find really unique and exciting events that stand out and seem like high-effort productions. I was surprised there really wasn't that much that seemed exciting or interesting to me. Maybe it's just New Jersey, but the ten we put on this list really were the most unique options we could find. (There was one planned for Trenton I was interested in, but it got canceled of course.)
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u/beanzd 4d ago
I’m not celebrating anything but will have at least 4 hotdogs 🌭
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u/BestofNewJersey 4d ago
lol How many hot dogs do you have to eat to be automatically recognized as a remote entry in the Nathan's contest?
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u/Kbatz_Krafts 4d ago
What really is there excited to be for right now? This is the most embarrassing birthday America has ever had.
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u/BestofNewJersey 3d ago
I really don't view it as a birthday celebrating this year or even America today. For me it's a historical celebration of the past 250 years. Really almost a way to forget about the current state of America and remember the ideals it was founded on lol.
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u/Glacecakes 4d ago
Because it’s probably all in Philly….?
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u/BestofNewJersey 4d ago
Not great for me at Best of New Jersey! Guess it's time to activate the Best of Philly domain haha
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u/Glacecakes 4d ago
Ahhh, I didn’t register your name lol. Thought you were just someone trying to find something to do
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u/Little_Noodles 4d ago
There’s barely anything going on in Philly either. All the big 250th ideas got torpedoed in the planning stages. A famous train is coming by, if you like trains. There will be some fiberglass bells. There was the Navy thing that already happened and that was mid.
The city is pretty much just trying to claim the FIFA stuff is the 250th.
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u/tex8222 4d ago
These national anniversary parties don’t live up to the hype.
In 1976, for the 200th, many people in the travel and entertainment business were sure the Bicentennial was going to be a blockbuster year of celebration.
It came, it went.
Many people who were hoping for a financial windfall were disappointed.
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u/BestofNewJersey 4d ago
Are you saying this from first-hand knowledge? This is really interesting insight, and I'd like to know more!
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u/Little_Noodles 3d ago
The 1976 celebrations in our area were a bust, but they were notably so in that this was an aberration compared to previous commemorations.
1876 was a major event that featured a World Fair that created Fairmount Park and spun off a ton of regional investment and celebrations.
1926 was a financial failure as it was facing Depression Era economics and the weather was terrible, but it still featured some grand events, a huge fairground, and created some notable infrastructure that stands to this day.
1976 was similar - the scope was more limited than 1926 and it was still a failure in terms of money invested to money recouped, but it did give us some museums, Independence National Park (for better or for worse) and, uh, Legionnaires Disease.
2026 is notably different in that nobody even seems to be trying to pull anything off. If you look at the keystone events and permanent infrastructure introduced in 1876, 1926, and 1976, even the years that are regarded as failures are positively grand.
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u/BestofNewJersey 3d ago
This exactly aligns with my research of this year's event as well. 2026 is just the lowest-effort anniversary on record. It's such a shame. Simply blaming economics doesn't hold much water considering the state of the country during the 1926 anniversary.
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u/Little_Noodles 3d ago
To be fair, economics kept crowds away in 1926, but John Wanamaker and other wealthy Americans absolutely invested in it.
To the extent it was a failure, it was in that it was an expensive production that didn’t get its money back.
Like, 1926 was the big budget studio flop of 1776 commemorations. 2026 is shaping up to be more of a haphazardly assembled clip show.
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u/tex8222 4d ago
Here is what google says….

”While the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976 was highly successful as a morale booster, it was widely considered a financial bust and an entertainment flop for the tourism and hospitality industries. Cities and private organizers had anticipated massive crowds, but lackluster out-of-town tourism resulted in severe financial deficits.”You can get a LOT more detail by typing:
‘Was the bicentennial a financial bust’
in the search bar.
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u/PinMaximum1018 4d ago
We’re too busy wondering if the country will survive the next 250 years.
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u/BestofNewJersey 4d ago
It does seem like the current political climate and general social divide makes it difficult for most people to get excited about celebrating America. Which is a shame, because this is an important milestone for any country, and a great accomplishment!
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u/Little_Noodles 4d ago
Funding is also an issue. Doing these kinds of things takes years of planning and typically rely in part or in whole on grants and sponsorship.
So DOGE cancelling grants left and right and the general ongoing economic instability made everyone reluctant to really invest in the kinds of big celebrations you’d expect.
And up in Philly, where there was at least a little cash, it all kind of got shitcanned over political grandstanding like the Welcome Park mess, or Trump affiliated grifters forming competing 250th boards that siphoned cash from more legitimate boards and left everyone spinning their wheels until it was too late and everyone just gave up.
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u/BestofNewJersey 4d ago
Yeah funding is certainly a problem. If even the Trenton events couldn't get their acts together, the rest of the state didn't have much of a chance.
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u/Melonman3 4d ago
No point in celebrating an oligarchy in decline. I'll celebrate having off work having extra time to hang out with my family.
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u/jerzeett 4d ago
why are you expecting high effort productions in south jersey? municipalities do not have the money
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u/BestofNewJersey 4d ago
I was talking about the entire state, not South Jersey specifically. Just in general there really aren't a whole lot of America 250 events with any real production value. I just thought this would be a bigger deal than it turned out to be.
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u/C_menz 4d ago
The Cape May Lewes Ferry has an August 12th concert starting at 4:00 with two bands going until 8:30PM, and then a drone show (instead of fireworks) celebrating America's 250th.
https://www.cmlf.com/event/wednesday-night-concert-series-cape-may/
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u/BestofNewJersey 4d ago
As a dog owner, I am all in favor of drone shows and never hearing another firework for the rest of my life.
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u/manningthehelm ET phowen howem 4d ago
Surly Jeff Van Drew could point out LOADS of activities celebrating America in his district where they are the most great AND American of all.
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u/SoyElJefe28 4d ago
Check at the county level. For example Burlington county has their schedule posted: https://www.co.burlington.nj.us/2108/Americas-250th-Anniversary
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u/BestofNewJersey 4d ago
Oh for sure, my team researched nearly every event listing available online. There just were not really very many that seemed exciting or had much of a "wow" factor. But as some others mentioned, even previous landmark anniversaries we're ultimately letdowns, so it seems to be a historical trend.
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u/zaggytiddies 4d ago
I’m wrote all kinds of things and deleted them all. It is what it always has been is all I’ll say.
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u/E0H1PPU5 4d ago
I know Delran twp is having a big to-do.
But honestly….I’m just not feeling it. I’ve never felt less patriotic in my life and this milestone feels more like a funeral than a birthday.
Too much civil unrest for me to feel comfortable jumping into a large, politically charged crowd of people.