The fireworks are brighter. The shows are longer. The concerts have more music.

Event planners of Independence Day celebrations are stressing unity amid a politically divided nation as they expand their ambitions or double down on tradition for America’s 250th anniversary.

The celebrations kick off on Friday, as cities across the country host a variety of festivities. Fireworks are set for Mount Rushmore, in South Dakota; the National Symphony Orchestra, the Choral Arts Society of Washington and other groups are planned to perform in front of the Capitol; and in Times Square, the famous ball is set to begin a series of drops to commemorate the anniversary.

Here are some of the big events:

All times are local.

Northeast and Mid-Atlantic

• Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks will be visible over the Brooklyn Bridge, the lower East River and the lower Hudson River in an expanded show that celebrates the event’s 50th anniversary alongside the nation’s 250th.

• The three-day Boston Harborfest, with its re-enactors and musical performers, will culminate with the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular.

• In Philadelphia, Christina Aguilera, Jill Scott, Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff are on the lineup for One Philly: Unity Concert for America.

• On Friday, A Capitol Fourth will kick off its events on the West Lawn of the Capitol with performances by the National Symphony Orchestra, The Choral Arts Society of Washington and others. Fireworks are also expected. It will air on PBS.

• Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo will defend their mustard belt titles during the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Festivities begin at noon.

• At 1 p.m. Saturday, after a naturalization ceremony at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s estate in Charlottesville, Va., and a keynote address from Gov. Abigail Spanberger, there will a ceremonial reading of the Declaration of Independence. The event will be live-streamed on Monticello’s YouTube channel.

• At 8 p.m. Saturday, PBS will air “America Made in Virginia: 250 Years Together” from Colonial Williamsburg. The live broadcast will feature performances from the Broadway star Kelli O’Hara and the singer-songwriter Judy Collins, among others, as well as a large-scale fireworks display.

• Freedom 250, the Trump-backed group organizing July 4 events, will livestream a fireworks show in Washington at 10:30 p.m. Some 850,000 fireworks shells will launch from 10 sites, including the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and eight barges along the Potomac River.

• For the first time, the Times Square Ball will drop eight times, once for midnight in every American time zone. The celebration begins at 10 a.m. Eastern on Friday with the first ball drop, for the Chamorro Time Zone, which covers Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. territories. A countdown for the East Coast will begin at 11:59 p.m. on Friday and continue west through 7 a.m. on Saturday for the final ball drop, for American Samoa.

South and Southwest

• Residents of and visitors to Gatlinburg, Tenn., will be among the first to celebrate the holiday with the city’s annual 4th of July Midnight Parade, beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday.

• Historical warbirds and aerobatic planes will take to the skies shortly before a fireworks show featuring a 1,500-shell finale at Addison Kaboom Town! in Addison, Texas, near Dallas.

• Nashville’s Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th added a second night to its five-stage celebration this year, which will feature the city’s largest-ever fireworks and drone show. The All-American Rejects, Boyz II Men and Brothers Osborne are on the lineup.

• Local bands and the band War will play a concert series at Albuquerque’s Freedom 4th.

• Kids and teenagers will drive custom-built coaster cars down a steep road for the annual Bisbee Coaster Race in southeastern Arizona.

Midwest

• In Chicago, the Navy Pier fireworks show will be brighter and cover more of the lakefront than in prior years.

• A Friday performance by Zedd, the electronic music artist, will lead into a 1,500-drone and fireworks show at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis on the first of the two-day Celebrate 250 event.

• And a series of contests at National Tom Sawyer Days in Hannibal, Mo., will include a competition between frogs, urged by their wranglers to leap as far as they can in three jumps.

• The National Park Service is partnering with South Dakota to put on a rare fireworks show at Mount Rushmore for 4,800 people on Friday. The show will be broadcast live at Main Street Square in Rapid City as part of its Real America Birthday Bash.

West

• Near Denver, fireworks will follow a festival and rugby doubleheader that is a partnership between Commerce City 4thFEST and the inaugural men’s World Rugby Nations Cup.

• America’s Freedom Festival, the weekslong festival in Provo, Utah, with hot air balloon launches and a colonial heritage fair, will conclude with performances by Brad Paisley, the country singer, and Nitro Circus, the action sports group.

• In Wyoming, an hour’s drive from Yellowstone National Park, cowboys and cowgirls are converging for the annual Cody Stampede Rodeo, which started Wednesday and ends Saturday.

• Queen Latifah will host a bash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, starting at 6:30 p.m. The event will feature live performances from the country star Chris Stapleton, the alt-rock band Smashing Pumpkins and the R&B singer Chaka Khan.

• Hundreds of thousands of attendees — including on three Carnival cruise ships — are expected to watch the Big Bay Boom in San Diego, where fireworks will be displayed from four barges.

Pacific Northwest

• More than 18,000 fireworks will be launched over the banks of the Snake River during the Melaleuca Freedom Celebration in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

• The Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Ore., will end with fireworks after three days of performances. The headliners included the Revivalists, Durand Jones & the Indications, and Tank and the Bangas.

• Artists will use chain saws to carve eight-by-three-foot logs into sculptures to be judged on Saturday, the last day of the Loggerodeo in Sedro-Woolley, Wash. The event also features a street dance and a beard and mullet contest.