Waterloo Homecoming 2.0 is set for this Saturday, and while the sense of community and hometown fun is sure to be felt, things will look a lot different this time around.

It was announced several months ago that Waterloo’s traditional summer celebration would be stepping away from its usual home downtown, moving instead to the Monroe County Fairgrounds.

While there will still be a homecoming parade to kick off this year’s event, that will be taking place a little earlier in the day. 

The parade steps off at 1 p.m. through the downtown streets as per usual.

Folks can then drive west to the fairgrounds at 4 p.m., where they can enjoy a wide variety of local vendors, live music, and an assortment of food, drinks and sweet treats.

This year’s homecoming comes to a crushing conclusion at 7 p.m., with the start of a monster truck show in the main arena of the fairgrounds – the same place thousands of spectators go to watch the popular Figure 8 race and auto demolition derby during the Monroe County Fair.

The event is put together thanks to collaboration between the Waterloo VFW and Waterloo Lion’s Club, who annually partner for the city’s homecomings.

Butch Sparwasser of the Waterloo VFW spoke positively about his expectations for the event.

“I am hoping everything turns out good and we have a good crowd, and we’ll go from there,” Sparwasser said. 

“It’s supposed to be a lot cooler Saturday,” he added, alluding to the triple-digit heat experienced so far this week.

Sparwasser further explained the reason behind the major changes this year.

“We wanted to do something different, and we thought it would be to our benefit to get the fairgrounds,” Sparwasser said. “It’s a lot less work, we don’t have to build our stands out there, we don’t have to have porta-Johns because the bathrooms are already out there at the fairgrounds, we got running water, we got electric. We got everything there.”

Sparwasser also noted the Waterloo Homecoming Committee had received complaints from some downtown businesses in the past who seemingly saw a significant negative impact to their sales during past Waterloo Homecoming weekends.

“We don’t want to abandon the city of Waterloo, because they treat us good, the city itself, for the parades and all we do there,” Sparwasser said. “We decided to keep everybody a little bit more happy about the situation by moving out. Maybe we’ll see what happens the next year.”

Ron Mueller of the Waterloo Lion’s Club also spoke optimistically about this year’s change of venue.

He also added more context to the switch from usual carnival attractions to the larger monster truck demo.

“Our normal carnival, the folks are getting a little older, and they’ve lost some of their workers, and they couldn’t get anybody to employ for the carnival,” Mueller said. “They decided that they had to downsize to where they’re just gonna do corporate events going forward and only have two or three rides at a time when they go somewhere. They wouldn’t be able to handle something as large as our homecoming.”

Mueller said there is a rather severe drought of carnivals in the southern Illinois area, so the committee began searching for entertainment elsewhere. 

It landed on Full Throttle Monster Trucks.

Per both Sparwasser and Mueller, the response from the community on this new idea has largely been positive, with folks expressing some concern for the substantial departure from homecoming tradition but nevertheless expressing interest in the evening show.

“It’s kinda unknown territory,” Mueller said. “We’ve never done something like this for homecoming. That’s why we’re calling it Homecoming 2.0. We hope to be able to have a good response for the homecoming and have a good party out at the fairgrounds and go from there.”

Byron Stewart – who serves on the homecoming committee with his wife Vanessa, who heads this committee – said their expectations were just as positive and hopeful as Sparwasser and Mueller.

Byron noted that vendor response has been tremendous this year, with far more vendors setting up for homecoming than in previous years.

Stewart further said that the monster truck show should be a substantial draw given the cheaper tickets compared to a typical monster truck event at larger venues.

“We’ve been working very closely with Ron and Butch on this entire deal, and we’re pretty excited about it,” Byron said. “We think it’s something unique, something different, and obviously with monster trucks you can’t parade them downtown, so that’s really what led to the entire thing.”

Homecoming tickets are available in advance at local Waterloo banks and at Rural King through Thursday night for $15. 

Tickets at the gate are $20. 

Children under 12 are admitted free to the show.

The monster trucks slated for Saturday’s main event are Bigfoot, Stomper, American Scout, Cattywampus and Hoosier Daddy. These trucks will be crushing cars, racing and freestyling throughout the night. 

For more information, call 618-660-6110. 

Coincidentally, the newest homecoming format mirrors one of the earliest iterations of the event organized by the Waterloo Commercial Club as a one-day event held Sunday, Sept. 5, 1915.

Attendance was estimated to be around 4,500 people from all parts of Monroe, Randolph and St. Clair counties. 

That parade nearly 108 years ago stepped off from the courthouse square and traveled west to Bickelhaupt’s Park (near the intersection of Route 3 and Park Street in Waterloo), where attendees were treated to food and drink, entertainment and inter-community contests.

A write-up of the event in the Sept. 10, 1915, Waterloo Times described that homecoming as a “red letter day” and credited the event with breathing new life into the community.