Main Street Electrical Parade
The Main Street Electrical Parade is a nighttime parade that first premiered at Disneyland in 1972 and has since become the longest running parade in Disney history, performing at Disney parks worldwide. Created by Robert Jani and project director Ron Miziker, the parade features floats and live performers covered in over 600,000 electronically controlled LED lights. The parade uses a synchronized soundtrack featuring a signature theme, Baroque Hoedown, which is arranged to complement each float.
The original parade at Disneyland in California ran from 1972 to 1996, and returned for limited engagements in 2017, 2019, and 2022. The neighboring Disney California Adventure park hosted the parade between 2001 and 2010. Another version, at Magic Kingdom in Florida's Walt Disney World Resort, ran from 1977 to 1991, 1999 to 2001, and 2010 to 2016.
The parade has also spun off several other versions that ran or continue to run at Disney parks around the world. An updated version has run at Tokyo Disneyland as Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: DreamLights since 2001. In 2014, Hong Kong Disneyland premiered a spiritual successor to the Main Street Electrical Parade, the Paint the Night Parade. An extended version of Paint the Night premiered at Disneyland on May 22, 2015, as part of the park's 60th anniversary celebration, and moved to Disney California Adventure on April 12, 2018. Paint the Night returned to Disneyland Park on May 14, 2025, for Disneyland's 70th anniversary celebration.
The original Disneyland version of the parade ran at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom as "Disney's Main Street Electrical Parade" from June 5, 2010, to October 9, 2016, when it closed in preparation for a limited-time run at Disneyland. The Disneyland run started on January 19, 2017, and was planned to run through June 18, 2017, but due to popular demand, Disney extended the parade's run to August 20, 2017.
On June 28, 2019, Disneyland officially announced that the parade would once again return to Disneyland Park for another limited engagement run, which began on August 2, 2019, and ran through September 30, 2019.
On October 26, 2021, the Disney Parks' TikTok account released a video teasing the parade's return to Disneyland again. On November 20, 2021, it was announced at Destination D23 that the parade will return in spring 2022. Disney confirmed on February 22, 2022, that the parade would return on April 22, 2022, as well as revealing a reimagined To Honor America finale float that is more inclusive. The parade's 50th anniversary run began on April 20, 2022, during a soft opening that was live streamed on the Disney Parks Blog and had its "final performance of the season" on September 1, 2022.
A spin-off of the parade performed at Disneyland Paris from January 8, 2024, to January 9, 2025, called the Disney Electrical Sky Parade, which honored the Disneyland Paris version of the parade using drones, water effects, projections, and pyrotechnics on drones.
History
Inspiration
The predecessor to the 1972 Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade was the Electrical Water Pageant, a show consisting of fourteen 25-foot-tall screens decorated with electrical lights and presented on Walt Disney World's Seven Seas Lagoon from 1971 to the present. Not long after the Electrical Water Pageant debuted, Card Walker commissioned the development of what became the Main Street Electrical Parade to provide Disneyland with a similar nighttime visual spectacle. The parade's design used nickel–cadmium batteries, which the Disney movie studio had recently started using, and Italian-made miniature bulbs that Disneyland staff had seen in light displays along Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. Disney arranged for the parade's original floats to be constructed by Silvestri, the Chicago-based company responsible for those holiday displays.Two months to deadline, Disney discovered the float contractor was far behind schedule and decided to finish the floats themselves in a backstage area at Disneyland. Disney brought on welders, electricians and other temporary workers to assemble the floats and hand-tint and install 500,000 bulbs. The engineers who helped create the parade also created the first automated parade show-control program. This allowed the long parade route to contain multiple radio-activated "trigger zones". Using radio-activated triggers as each float entered a zone, the audience would hear float-specific music through the park's audio system. Each zone was between long, and the zoned system meant that every person watching the parade would experience the same show, no matter where they stood along the parade route.
Early years
The first rehearsal was a "disaster"; a float crashed into a building on Main Street, U.S.A., and some performers' costumes emitted sparks. Despite these obstacles, the parade successfully debuted on schedule on June 17, 1972. The original parade floats featured the Blue Fairy, a large drum pulled by the Casey Jr. Engine, Cinderella, a Chinese dragon, and a circus calliope. Until 1977, some of the floats, such as the elephant train and the American flag finale, were flat screens on manually pushed rolling platforms similar to the Electrical Water Pageant.The Main Street Electrical Parade had counterparts of the same name and layout at Magic Kingdom in the Walt Disney World Resort, which ran from June 11, 1977, to September 14, 1991. It was replaced by a similar parade called SpectroMagic, which ran from October 1, 1991, to May 20, 1999, reopened on April 2, 2001, and ended on June 4, 2010. On April 12, 1992, the version from Magic Kingdom went to Disneyland Park at Disneyland Paris and ran there until March 23, 2003. It was then replaced by Fantillusion, a nighttime parade from Tokyo Disneyland that had earlier replaced the Tokyo version of the Main Street Electrical Parade, which ran from March 9, 1985, to June 21, 1995.
On June 14, 1997, a presentation of the Electrical Parade called the "Hercules Electrical Parade", ran on Broadway, Manhattan, New York City for the opening of Disney's New Amsterdam Theater and the film Hercules. Disney arranged for the lights to be all turned off on about eight blocks of Broadway up to the theater. All businesses complied, with the exception of Disney rival Warner Brothers. It was led by a custom Hercules title unit made for this one time only use. It was shown on national television on a one-hour promotional program featuring the music and making of Hercules.
Later years
The Main Street Electrical Parade closed at Disneyland on November 25, 1996, after a 24-year run. Light bulbs certified as having been part of the show were sold to collectors. The show's replacement, the Light Magic parade, opened in 1997 to disappointing results. Disney quickly cancelled Light Magic but held off in bringing back the popular Main Street Electrical Parade. However, the parade was refurbished and appeared at Magic Kingdom on May 21, 1999, for a limited engagement, just in time for Walt Disney World Millennium Celebration. The parade ended its run at Magic Kingdom on April 1, 2001, and SpectroMagic was brought back the following day.Back in Japan, the Tokyo version of the show would return as Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade - DreamLights on June 17, 2001, with much larger floats, more than 1 million lights, and a new G-major and orchestral version of Baroque Hoedown arranged by Gregory Smith, replacing the classic A-minor version of the song. This version of the parade gets updated with new units regularly and still performs at Tokyo Disneyland today, aside from a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Main Street Electrical Parade floats were then sent back to California for the parade's return to Disneyland. These plans changed after Anaheim management saw the poor attendance figures for the spring break season at Disney California Adventure and feared that the park would fail to attract large crowds during the crucial summer season unless they had a big draw. So Disney announced that the popular Main Street Electrical Parade would be coming to Disney California Adventure Park on July 2, 2001, in honor of the park's first summer. The name of the show was changed from the Main Street Electrical Parade to Disney's Electrical Parade, as Disney California Adventure has no Main Street. All of the 1996 parade floats returned, except for the Snow White diamond mine float and the Pinocchio unit, as they were sent to Disneyland Paris in 1997.
During the 2008 Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade special, Disney announced a new Tinker Bell float would join the parade to replace the Blue Fairy as the parade's leader. This would also mark the first new float in 20 years to be added to the parade. It was also announced in early 2009 that the Snow White diamond mine float and Pinocchio unit would be returning to the California version as well. The parade then held its final performance in its original form on January 5, 2009, and closed for six months as it underwent a massive refurbishment. The parade then returned on June 12, 2009, with the Tinker Bell, Snow White Diamond mine, and Pinocchio units joining the show. The parade also saw an update to the lights, as they were all replaced with LEDs, and the introduction of the G-major version of Baroque Hoedown that was first used in DreamLights in 2001 at Tokyo Disneyland, but less orchestral. This update was done for Disneyland's "Summer Nightastic!" 2009 promotional package.
Disney's Electrical Parade then ended is run at Disney California Adventure on April 18, 2010, and was sent to Magic Kingdom as part of the Walt Disney World 2010 promotional package "Summer Nightastic!" The parade was not modified from its Disney California Adventure run, with the drum still saying "Disney's Electrical Parade", but the name of the parade itself was changed back to The Main Street Electrical Parade. The parade returned to Magic Kingdom on June 5, 2010. While it was initially announced that the parade would run through August 14, 2010, Disney later announced in July 2010 that the parade would stay in Florida for the time being, and that it was on an "open-ended" run.
Six years later, the parade would finally end its run at Magic Kingdom on October 9, 2016, in preparation for a limited-time return to Disneyland Park in California, which was scheduled to run from January 20 to June 18, 2017, before being extended to August 20, 2017. A special ticketed premiere event, costing, occurred on January 19, 2017. Disneyland restored the drum float to once again read "Main Street Electrical Parade" as well as "Disneyland Presents". Tinker Bell's float, added in 2009, was moved back to the Peter Pan unit and was altered for the 2017 run, making Casey Junior the new leader of the parade. On February 24, 2017, the pixie dust swooshes added to the floats in 2009 were removed, except on Tinker Bell's float, since Tinker Bell was no longer the parade's leader. On June 28, 2019, Disney announced that the Main Street Electrical Parade would return to Disneyland for a third run on August 2, 2019, and would run through September 30, 2019.
On July 22, 2019, to advertise the parade's new run, the official Disneyland Resort YouTube channel posted a slightly edited version of a commercial from two years prior. The parade ran at Disneyland from August 2 through September 30 for its 2019 seasonal run. On September 28, 2020, one of the spinning snails of the Alice In Wonderland unit made a special live appearance for Tyra Banks' opening entrance for the 2020 Disney Night of Dancing With The Stars.