The fireworks might be the main event, but really – no one wants to spend all day standing around waiting for 9:30 p.m.

The best Fourth of July plans are built around the fireworks, not entirely about them. Imagine rooftop cocktails before sunset, waterfront beers, a great dinner, maybe one more stop afterward, and then ending the night under one of the biggest fireworks displays of the year...pretty good, right?

Here's how to make the most of Independence Day in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia isn't winding down just because the weekend is coming to an end. In fact, some of the city's best events are happening today, we’ve got live jazz, karaoke, paint-and-sips, and waterfront day parties that make Monday feel very far away.

Friends coming to Philadelphia for the World Cup are going to ask what they should do between matches.

You could send them to the Liberty Bell and call it a day. Technically, that works. But if you actually like these people and want them to leave thinking that Philadelphia was way more fun than they expected, you need a better plan.

A busy weekend is upon us! The city is packed with World Cup festivities, Juneteenth celebrations, street festivals, outdoor parties, live music, rooftop drinks, neighborhood events, and clearly enough excuses to leave your apartment that doing none of the above is simply not an option. Here are 25 things worth checking out this weekend: 

There are several different avenues you can take when considering how you will watch the next World Cup match. You can watch it from your couch, where the snacks are close. You can also always squeeze into a bar like any other weekend. Or you can head to the FIFA Fan Festival Lemon Hill, where Philadelphia has turned a patch of Fairmount Park into an unrecognizable soccer hangout with incredible skyline views, big screens, food, drinks, and music (yeah, this option is our favorite).

All great World Cup watch parties do not necessarily need to happen inside a traditional sports bar. Across Philadelphia, breweries are transforming taprooms into match day destinations complete with everything you need to have a smashing good time. We’re talking giant projectors, drink specials, giveaways, and food features.

If you're looking to trade sticky bar floors for fresh beer and a little more breathing room, these breweries are making a strong case for becoming your World Cup headquarters.

Philadelphia is a growing soccer city, and with FIFA fever taking over, there’s no shortage of places to catch a match. Which is quite lucky, because this isn’t a plop-down-on-the-couch event. No, no, it's a stand-up-when-someone-hits-the-post event. A spill-your-drink-after-a-90th-minute-goal event. A lose-your-voice-because-your-team-survived-extra-time event.

And, thank God for soccer fans, Philadelphia knows how to watch a tournament.

The city has spent years building a soccer culture that stretches far beyond Subaru Park. If you're looking for somewhere to celebrate, commiserate, or scream at a referee, these are some of the best soccer bars to do so in Philadelphia.

During Pride Weekend, brunch goes way beyond just eggs and mimosas. It is the warmup, it’s the outfit check. It’s the first round and the place where your group gets organized.

And this weekend, Philadelphia has plenty of great options to start the celebration before the march, festival, parties, and nighttime plans take over all your extra brain space.

Pride Weekend in Philadelphia never really stays in one lane, which is always the best part. It starts as a march, segues into a festival, spills into the bars, pulls drag performers onto stages, fills sidewalks with glitter, flags, music, friends, strangers, and consistently becomes one of the loudest, warmest, most alive weekends of the summer.

This year's Pride Weekend is shaping up to be one of the biggest in recent memory, with events stretching from the Delaware Waterfront to the Parkway and everywhere in between. 

Philadelphia has never struggled to find places to drink. Or places to eat. Or places to stay out later than originally intended. But what Philly has struggled with is finding places that blend all of those things together in a way that feels easy.

For anyone unfamiliar, Porchfest is a community driven live music festival where local musicians and bands perform on front porches, stoops, patios, and sidewalks throughout West  Philadelphia. Instead of everyone gathering around one giant stage, the music is spread across residential streets, creating a moving festival atmosphere that encourages people to walk around and explore.

There was a time when cocktails were not trying to be mysterious. People were out here ordering Melon Balls like they had stock in melon liqueur. French Martinis made everybody feel impossibly sophisticated, and bars served shots with names nobody questioned. Then somewhere along the way, cocktails got… serious. Bartenders started describing cocktails using words like washed, clarified, and expressive.

But what do you think, we kind of secretly miss having fun, don’t we? 

Certain weekends in Philadelphia feel very straightforward, meaning you go out, end up at the same bar you always end up at, hear the same playlist you heard last Saturday, and eventually Uber home wondering why your night somehow looked exactly like your last three nights. This weekend does not feel like that.

This weekend feels like our nightlife split into five different personalities and told everybody to pick their fighter.

You could spend Saturday night slowly swaying to reggae and soul in an intimate listening bar. Or screaming 2000s lyrics at a Pre-Pride dance party. Or spiraling emotionally at Drake Night with a vodka soda in your hand.

There are two types of Philadelphian weekend plans. The first kind is where you tell yourself you’re going to be productive, run errands, maybe grab one coffee, and keep it calm.

And then there’s Coffee Rave.

Every Philadelphia summer eventually turns into a waterfront summer.

The very second the weather breaks, people start migrating east like they’re being summoned. The Delaware River stretch has become one of the easiest places in the city to build an entire night around without the need to travel. You can bounce between beer gardens, giant decks, cocktail spots, outdoor hangouts, and bars to your heart’s content.If you’re anything like the masses, suddenly everyone wants a frozen drink outside with a view of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge instead of standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a dark room pretending it’s still January.

For a while, everything leaned heavily toward rooftop bars, bright cocktail lounges, and places that felt designed more for daylight than actual late nights. But Bastet, the newly opened nightclub on 6th and Spring Garden, feels like a hard pivot back toward something moodier.

Darker rooms, heavy atmosphere, music-centered vibe. You know, a little of everything Philadelphia’s been missing.

Cinco Express is not a very laissez-faire situation.

Well… it is.

But if you don’t have at least a loose game plan, you’re going to blink and realize you’ve been at the same bar for three hours while the rest of Philadelphia is already on round six somewhere else.

The goal is to ride the wave without getting stuck too early, and here’s how to actually do that.

This Saturday is the Cinco Express and we’ve got some BIG last minute announcements! New locations, Party on the Waterfront, Rittenhouse Row Festival.

We’re just a few weeks out from Cinco de Mayo, a entire day situation that turns into a night, and if you play it right, you barely have to plan anything. The city is stacked this year with bar crawls, DJ sets, taco spots, and outdoor hangs that all connect if you move through them the right way.

A reservation spreadsheet is simply not necessary four Saturdays out of the month.Some days are better when you start with one decent idea and just let Philadelphia do the rest, and this weekend is especially good for that. There’s a farmers market block party in Northern Liberties, Panda Fest at Dilworth Park, and Parks on Tap is back at Azalea Garden in Fairmount Park, which means the city is handing you a loose itinerary already.