2024 WaterFire Providence Event Schedule

Hi Jenda, depends on when in the Spring you plan to visit. We’re planning to a few smaller events in April and May with our first Full Lighting of the season on June 1 (RISD Commencement). At this time we do not have any event dates fully confirmed. Thank you for your support and patience.

Hi Jessica, the 2024 season will be announced on April 18th at WaterFire Day!

Hi Dana, we do not have an event planned for that date.

All the best, Tim

Hi Abby,

Good question. The short answer is “it depends.”

The longer answer is that most of the time our event schedule is determined by factors that we don’t totally control. Each year we start our season schedule by first looking at tide charts and identifying all of the “good” dates for a WaterFire lighting. Due to the tidal nature of the Providence river we need high tides between certain levels to accommodate our fire tending boats, both to set up the event and then light/feed the fires from sunset until the end of the event. We then take that list of good dates and working with sponsors and partners we identify funding sources that will pay for each event.

So we can only produce a WaterFire lighting on a certain date if both the tides/weather and funding sources line up.

For many years the Memorial Day weekend had been the unofficial start of WaterFire season, but in that past few years we haven’t secured funding for an event that weekend. We won’t have all of our 2024 season schedule confirmed until we announce our schedule on April 18th on WaterFire Day, but right now it does not look like we’ll be doing a lighting that weekend.

Hi Glori, yes Full Lightings are typically on Saturdays. We’re likely to have one or two lightings in August.

Hi Louise, the 2024 season schedule will be announce on Thursday, April 18 at WaterFire Day. You can sign up for a our newsletter or stay tuned to this space for details.

Not yet. Stay tuned! See our note at the top of the page regarding the schedule announcement.

We’re looking a doing a Basin Lighting on the 11th. It will be in partnership with the “Learn 365 RI” convention.

Exciting! Details for this and our other scheduled lightings will be posted on April 18th.

We do not have anything planned for those dates at this time.

Hi Roberta, unfortunately we do not have any events schedule that week.

Hi Kate, we’re still working to confirm that date. Stay tuned!

We’ll be announcing the date of our Clear Currents Community Paddling night later this spring. Stay tuned (we’re working to secure funding to announce additional lighting dates).

Hi Elaine, at this point you’re going to need a time machine to locate the 2025 season schedule. Typically each season schedule is not published until the spring of the year in question. You can follow up with Kristina McKenzie in our operations department, they may have some “good tide” dates in 2025 on which we’d potentially schedule lightings, but fair warning that any of those date would be hypothetical right now.

The City of Providence’s fireworks display will be on July 2nd. So at this time there will no fireworks during the WaterFire lighting on July 4th.

Partial lightings are smaller, typically only one section of the river is lit, and do not include any or include only a small portion of our onshore programming. There is more info about the different types of lightings on our schedule page.

You can view the details here.

Hi Robert, you can learn about booking a boat tour here.

Yes, most of the river walks are accessible. You can find more information and map in our guide to on-shore accessibility at WaterFire.

Onshore programming will start at 6:00 p.m. and the lighting ceremony will begin around 7:30 p.m.

Yes, that’s the last full lighting of the season. We are doing a holiday lighting in Memorial Park on December 7th.

There are a limited number of reserved handicap accessible space in the parking lot at the Citizens Bank building. If you’re going to plan for street parking please make sure to arrive early. There are typically spaces on N. Main Street and Canal Street near the Roger Williams National Memorial up to an hour before our lighting ceremony begins.