Hundreds of people swarmed the Southwest waterfront in Washington, D.C., Saturday for the Fireworks Light Up the Night family festival and fireworks spectacular.

The event is a part of the 98th Annual National Cherry Blossom Festival, a weeklong festival to celebrate springtime in the city.

The event started at 5 p.m. with the fifth annual Prelude to the Fireworks- a
free, three-hour festival of family entertainment including kids craft
activities and live musical performances.

This is Eunique Minick’s, 24, and her 4 year-old daughter Jalissa’s first
Cherry Blossom Festival event.

“We live in Woodbridge [Virginia] but we’ve never made it out before,” said
Eunique.

By dusk, spectators flocked to the grassy hill across from the fish market to
get a good spot to see the fireworks.

The half hour long display began promptly at 8:30 p.m. Many in the grassy crowd
were disappointed that the fireworks weren’t directly in front of the fish market
but were farther up the street behind Philip’s Restaurant.

“I’m a little disappointed,” said one spectator as he grabbed his blanket and
headed back to his car after only 10 minutes of watching the display.

Anthony Belle, 24, who traveled from Oxen Hill, Md., was also disappointed at the
show.

“There are usually a lot of oohs and ahhs coming from the crowd during fireworks
shows and all I see are people leaving.”

About a quarter of the crowd left the hill before the end of the show but not
everyone was disappointed.