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Stadium of Fire Event

Daily Herald
Utah, USA

18 May 2005

Ticket sales going strong for Stadium of Fire

Nick Nelson DAILY HERALD

Tickets for this year's Stadium of Fire are going like a string of exploding Black Cats.

Taylor McDonald, executive director of America's Freedom Foundation, the nonprofit group that hosts the event, said tickets are going faster than in past years, and more than half of the approximately 48,000 tickets for the show already have been snatched up.

"We're doing just dandy by comparison to previous years," he said. "We are on track to sell out. There are a lot of good seats left, but the sales are brisk."

Rick Nelson, associate director for the foundation, said one reason for the rapid sales might be the fact that this year marks a milestone for the event.

"This is 25 years we're celebrating here," he said. "This is a big deal."

McDonald said the event has evolved over the decades since Alan Osmond began the Stadium of Fire in what was BYU Cougar Stadium in 1980. But he said the big-budgeted bash remains true to the tradition of importing big names and exporting extravagant fireworks displays.

On this year's ticket are singer/actress Mandy Moore, country band Lonestar, and actors Lou Diamond Phillips, Lucy Lawless and Debbie Reynolds. Kurt Bestor will perform with the Stadium of Fire Symphony, and the Osmond Second Generation will perform as part of the show.

McDonald said the fireworks display will be unprecedented. The Freedom Foundation received permission from the fire marshal to ignite more than 1 million firecrackers to commemorate a similar display by Alan Osmond in 1989.

McDonald downplayed any supposed rivalry between his show and Freedom Blast, a similar show put on in the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles stadium that will feature American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson. He said the competition did not concern him.

"We have a traditional core," he said. "People go there and feel a special spirit of patriotism." Tickets for Stadium of Fire can be purchased at the Marriott Center ticket booth in Provo and at BYUtickets.com.