LOUISVILLE, Ky. — People won't be crowded at Waterfront Park this Saturday to ring in Thunder Over Louisville. Instead, the fireworks show will be at five locations that the Kentucky Derby Festival (KDF) intended to keep secret. However, the fireworks permits were published online, leading to the locations being leaked on Reddit.

KDF spokesperson Aimee Boyd said organizers are aware of the location leak. She said the worry is that crowds of people will flock to those spots to watch the show Saturday. That was something KDF tried to prevent, which is why organizers intended to keep the locations a secret in the first place.

“Having the undisclosed locations wasn’t something we were doing to create any issues for the community. It was just the best way to bring firework show to the community without gathering crowds," said Boyd. "We know everybody loves to see Thunder and we would love nothing more than to have all of our fans on the river for the show, but because we are still in the middle of a pandemic, we just cannot gather like that.”

Boyd said KDF started the planning process for Thunder Over Louisville last fall. At the time, there were still a lot of restrictions as coronavirus case counts were high. Having canceled Thunder Over Louisville the year prior, Boyd said they wanted to come up with a way to at least give people a show. That's when this plan was born.

KDF picked five locations throughout the Louisville Metro to host smaller fireworks displays at. Boyd said they took the resources that usually go into the one large show and divvied it up between the five locations. Since this requires being in more residential areas than the waterfront, KDF organizers kept in mind what the impact would be on neighbors. When picking locations, they wanted to make sure they weren't going to be too close to anyone's home. The shows will also be shorter now that they are out in the community. Each will last 18 minutes instead of the usual 30 minutes. 

Boyd said it is a made-for-tv show as the displays are meant to complement one another. Boyd encourages everyone to either watch on TV or from their backyards if they can see one from there.

The show starts at 9:30 p.m. Saturday.