Red Hot Fourth looking west

The Red Hot Fourth could be moving in next to baseball's "hot corner."

The Fourth of July Celebration, held in the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium for the past four summers, is in financial hot water, and promoter Bryce Jolley is hoping to cut costs by relocating the event to Franklin Covey Field, where home base and third base are known in baseball lingo as the "hot corner."

"We may go to a four-day celebration where some days are baseball and some days are concerts and pageantry," Jolley said Friday. "We'd actually be taking it to a different level, but the (rental) cost of Franklin Covey Field is $5,000 and Rice-Eccles is $60,000 and that makes a huge difference."

Jolley, Stingers General Manager Dorsena Picknell and Salt Lake City stadium manager Tony Riney were scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. today for an initial discussion about a possible relocation.

Jolley hopes eventually it can turn a profit like its 21-year-old counterpart in Utah County, the Stadium of Fire, held each Fourth of July at Brigham Young University's LaVell Edwards Stadium.

Jolley, a former Salt Lake City councilman, said his event is now $500,000 in debt. All venders from this year's show have been paid at least 80 percent of the amount they are due, Jolley said. He plans to pay the remaining 20 percent when sponsorships for next summer's show are submitted in January.

However, a letter Jolley sent to about 20 venders in July asked them to accept the 80-percent amount as payment in full, if the event cannot continue for any reason. But Jolley said he is determined to keep the show afloat, saying all but one of the venders have been accepting and supportive of his payment plan.

Ken Lantis owns Lantis Fireworks, which has been hired to conduct the pyrotechnics show at Red Hot Fourth each year. He said he is willing to wait for the rest of his money and hopes to be involved with the show again next year.

"I am not angry. I am not disappointed," Lantis said via cell phone while on business in San Diego. "I think he's a wonderful and honest man.

"I think it's a very good thing that Salt Lake City could use. We need more events like this. We are a million people. Utah is one of the most patriotic states. We should have one of the biggest Fourth of July events in the United States."

Jolley said he had to sell a small portion of his interest in his family's pharmacy business to his brother in order to pay 80 percent of the debt owed from this year's show.