Savaiinaea was glad La Crescenta didn't follow suit.
"The laser's great, but it's the Fourth of July — you gotta have fireworks," she said.
It was a sentiment the Crescenta Valley Fireworks Assn. took to heart and ran with in February after the Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce decided not to fund the event this year.
That decision was made after the Glendale Unified School District again decided to not make the field at Crescenta Valley High School available for the show over lingering concerns about the effects thousands of people — food and drinks included — would have on new artificial turf there.
Without the large venue and the more than 5,000 ticket-payers the show could attract, the chamber decided the show would not be financially viable.
But the event was resuscitated after the school district offered the elementary school as an alternative and fireworks association volunteers were able to secure a major portion of the $30,000 it needed through the Glendale City Council, the county and corporate donors, organizers said.
Original plans had to be parred down to fit the smaller venue, but residents didn't seem to mind, and organizers were just glad to have it.
"It's really happening, so it's really good," Paul Dutton, vice-president of the association and operations manager for the event, said.
Original plans to only sell 2,000 tickets at $5 each were bumped up to 3,000 after strong initial ticket sales and a site assessment once the infrastructure had been set up, fireworks association President Rick Dinger said.
"That kind of put us in a good spot," he said. "The community wanted a place to go and we facilitated that for them."
