The Parade that Keeps Coming Back
In our house, the Main Street Electrical Parade has become known as “the parade that never ends”. This recent run is its 4th at Disneyland; it had a run at California Adventure and 3 runs at the Magic Kingdom. Park guests love the parade, and Disney just can’t leave it alone. So, lets take a look back in time and check out the history of the Electrical Parade and see how far it’s come. Original Debut Electrical Water Pageant in the 1970’s The original idea for a light parade came from the Electrical Water Pageant in Walt Disney World. It consisted of fourteen screens that were decorated with electrical lights and floated across Seven Seas Lagoon. Card Walker, who was Disney’s CEO at the time, and the Disneyland executives were looking for a way to keep people at Disneyland later in the evening. They loved the idea of the lights and so a plan was made that put similar lighting elements on parade floats to give Disneyland a nighttime show. A Chicago-based company was hired to construct t...