NILES — Three bands, a parade and fire performers will take turns performing from 3 to 10:45 p.m. Thursday for a free July 4 celebration.

The inaugural Hometown Reunion, hosted by the Niles Summer Concert Series, is meant to make the U.S.’s birthday even more celebratory at Riverfront Park.

The event is the brainchild of Caryn Adler, the founder and organizer for the Niles Summer Concert Series.

Adler had planned to host Thursday’s Hometown Reunion like one of the regular Niles Summer Concert Series, which features a musical performer and a partnering nonprofit each Thursday summer evening.

But this Thursday’s concert fell on the Fourth of July. Instead of canceling the concert, Adler said she decided to make it special. She catered the event toward families, as her other concert series events are meant to be, but she also catered it towards those returning to their hometown for the holiday.

“How great to get those Niles people back here, see what’s been happening in Niles, have them reconnect with old friends and family members, see what’s changed, and just remember what the taste of a small-town life is like,” she said.

The concert series, in its second year, has hosted 50 percent more attendees with each concert this summer, Adler said. She expects the reunion to bring in even more people.

“They just like the idea of a community coming together,” she said about the attendees. “[They like] to have the music, to have it be free, have an opportunity to learn about services and things in the nonprofit area.”

The event’s featured nonprofit organization is the Niles Burn Run, a July 19 to 20 motorcycle-escorted ride and festival. Proceeds will to go toward a camp for young burn survivors.

The Niles Burn Run will be accepting donations at the event and will offer drinks, popsicles, pickles and glowsticks for $1.

Michiana Concessions, of Buchanan, will also provide its standard concession fare.

Grand Rapids-based folk duo Sounds of Friday will kick off the event at the Riverfront Park amphitheater. Co-performer David Rees cites the band’s music is an experiment to create a feeling when no expression is spent.

After Sounds of Friday’s 3 to 4:30 p.m. performance, Hey Annie will take the stage from 5 to 7 p.m. The local rock group previously performed at June’s Third Thursday event at the Grand LV, bringing on Mayor Nick Shelton as a special guest drummer.

Past Time, a ‘50s and ‘60s rock band from Bridgman, will close out the musical events for the evening from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.

After Past Time jams, the Parade of Wheels event will roll from 7 to 7:30 p.m. at the Veterans War Memorial and end near the amphitheater. Attendees of all ages can bring their decorated, non-motorized wheeled vehicles. That includes bikes, strollers, wheel chairs, walkers, scooters and wagons, Adler said.

The event, she said, is reminiscent of a bike parade that occurred at Eastside Park when Adler was a child in Niles in the 1960s. She wanted to bring that Fourth of July parade back.

The night’s grand finale will not be a firework spectacular — that will be hosted the night before by the Greater Niles Chamber of Commerce at the Apple Festival Fairgrounds. The finale, though, will be bright.

Phoenix Rising, a fire performance group from Muskegon, Michigan, will dance at dusk with a variety of fire props. Its hour-long performance, titled “Letters to Home,” is fitting given the holiday’s celebration of independence of the U.S., director Julie Phoenix said.

Through theatrical dance with props lit on fire, the performance is meant to be a tribute to veterans from World War I to the present, she said.

“It features letters that were written by the people that were there, songs that would mean something to them and the choreography to tell that story to tie it together,” Phoenix said.

Phoenix said reading and choosing the letters was difficult, but the emotional weight each carried made adding choreography to the performance easy.

“Some of these letters, especially from the Vietnam era, get pretty dark,” she said. “It took me weeks of sifting through letters to find ones that would say what I needed to say without having us be emotional wrecks.”

Phoenix said that the emotions invoked in the performance, which culminate in what she said is a powerful closer, tend to invoke an emotional response from the audience. That tends to be especially true at a venue like the Riverfront Park.

“It’s a more intimate feeling, and you get the chance to touch base with those people after,” Phoenix said. “Last year, we did a show in Hart, [Michigan], and it was a bunch of children. Each one of the little kids had to come up and give me a high-five after.”

Phoenix said she is appreciative of both her performers, who come from all backgrounds to be trained with her troop, and Niles Fire Chief Larry Lamb for his kindness during Phoenix Rising’s process of getting cleared to perform with fire at the park.

Fire department staff and a line of caution tape will be set up around the trained performers.

Adler said she is excited to have Phoenix Rising close out the evening.

“The great thing is, number one, you would normally have to go to a much larger city to see a performance like this,” Adler said. “Number two, Niles’ fireworks are the night before, so you don’t have to choose what you want to do. You can do both.”