Philadelphia's 4th of July Welcome America Festival - Food, Fun, Fireworks!

The Welcome America Festival is Philadelphia's biggest annual bash, beginning a week before Independence Day and culminating with a spectacular fireworks display on the Fourth. The Welcome America Festival presents a week of food, live entertainment, movies, fireworks and much more.

Philly at the Movies gives you a chance to take the kids to a free move and not worry if they drop popcorn (the pigeons will clean it up the next day). Hit movies are presented at different outdoor venues between June 27 and July 1. This year's presentations are Best in Show, Transformers: The Dark of the Moon, Fame, Rocky (at the Art Museum of course, did you doubt?), The Devil Wears Prada and Hairspray.

Wawa Hoagie Day: Not that Mayor Michael Nutter and Philadelphia police and fire personnel don't have enough to worry about, but on June 29 from noon to 2 p.m. at Independence Mall they will be dealing with serving the public a four and a half ton hoagie.

Two Cities One Waterfront Fireworks Display: Beginning at 7 p.m., Philly and Camden join up to present Fireworks on the Delaware on July 2. The United States Army Band at Philadelphia's RiverStage at Penn's Landing's Great Plaza will perform simultaneously with the Air National Guard Band of the Mid-Atlantic at Wiggins Waterfront Park in Camden. Looks to be a noisy night!

Concerts: Peter Nero and the Philly Pops will return to the Welcome America Festival on July 3 at 8 p.m. at Independence Hall. On July 4, The Roots (okay, I admit I have no idea who they are but evidently everyone else in the world does) will perform on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Fourth of July Events: The Independence Day Ceremony on the steps of Independence Hall at 10 a.m. will be followed by the Independence Parade at 11 a.m. At 1:45 p.m, descendants of the signers of the Declaration participate in a Bell Tapping Ceremony at the Liberty Bell Center. Take your appetite and dancing shoes with you to the Party on the Parkway, running from noon to 7 p.m. at Eakins Oval on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Visit the homepage of Welcome America website here for complete information on other festival events, including a photo exhibit honoring the Tuskegee Airmen, an ice cream festival and the Chinatown block party. Shame on you if, after we went to all this trouble, you can't have fun in Philly over the Fourth of July.