CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Last year, the Freedom Festival saw its largest turnout in six years.

This year, organizers hope to build on that momentum and are already working to attract more people for the June and July activities. Organizers said the festival will have more to offer but perhaps the biggest addition will be a second location to spend the fourth of July.

After nearly 105,000 people turned out to watch fireworks along the Cedar River last year, organizers saw an opportunity to accommodate more people.

“On the fourth of July this year, we won’t just be downtown we will also be at the Kernel’s stadium,” said Erika Elles, VP of the Freedom Festival Board of Directors.

Now people can pick from two different Cedar Rapids locations for firework displays. During the day on July 4th will also be filled with new activities to keep busy.

“We are going to start out the fourth with a pancake breakfast, then a concert. Then there will be the baseball game which will be followed by another concert,” said Robyn Rieckhoff, the new Executive Director of the Freedom Festival.

This year, leaders said there will be more things to do, in a shorter time.

“This year we took it down from three weeks to two weeks and that was based on feedback we received from volunteers, people on the board, citizens of Cedar Rapids that attended the events,” said Elles.

Organizers expect those two weeks won’t disappoint. They have been using last year’s feedback to help them decide what should and shouldn’t be in this year’s festival.

“We are going to have a couple more bands coming, but we are not ready to release who that is going to be yet,” said Rieckhoff.

“We had some attendance that was low at some events for example this year we are not doing cardboard boat regatta, we are going to take a year off from that event,” said Elles.

But events like the Balloon Glow and the Firefighter challenge drew so much interest, they are expanding them. The firefighter challenge will now be a two-day event where kids can compete.

“One of the comments we got from people who attended that event was you have to bring this back we just loved it,” said Elles.

Leaders want to make this the best festival yet, but say they still need your voice to do it.

“We really would like to start working with the community more to hear about what they would like to see,” said Rieckhoff.

The festival runs June 21st through July 4th, but they will still raise the flag on flag day.

If you would like to share your ideas you can go to the freedom festival Facebook page by clicking here.