Jason Derulo, Cynthia Erivo to headline virtual 2020 Wawa Welcome America Festival
With no in-person audience, the concert will be broadcast live from The Met Philadelphia on NBC10 at 8 p.m. on July 4.
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Jason Derulo and Tony Award-winning actress Cynthia Erivo will headline the 2020 Wawa Welcome America Festival on July Fourth — an event being held virtually this year to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.
With no in-person audience, the concert will be broadcast live from the Met Philadelphia on NBC10 at 8 p.m..
In past years, the massive Welcome America festival has typically included days of events throughout the city leading up to July Fourth, culminating with a concert and fireworks show and drawing thousands of residents and tourists to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
This year, the festival lineup features a series of virtual events, including online wellness programming, a children’s education series and story time, virtual museum tours, esports tournaments, and a door decorating contest.
Various musical groups, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and the U.S. Army Band, will perform nightly on NBC10 at 7.
“There’s nothing worse than taking 200,000 people, in July, in the middle of the pandemic, and putting them together on the Parkway so they can breathe on each other,” Mayor Jim Kenney previously said when announcing the festival’s move to a virtual platform.
It remains unclear whether this year’s festival will include a fireworks display.