LIGHTS OUT FOR ELECTRICAL PARADE? DON'T BET ON IT
The venerable Main Street Electrical Parade, which has bid farewell and returned again so many times at the Disneyland Resort it's easy to lose count, is saying goodbye one more time after a limited summertime run.
But is the 50-year-old parade really “glowing away” forever?
Don't count on it.
The workhorse attraction, which seems to reappear at just the right moment whenever Disneyland needs an attendance boost or has a temporary entertainment gap to fill, will likely be back again someday soon for a return engagement. In fact, there's nothing to keep the parade from glowing again and again for another 50 years.
The Main Street Electrical Parade and the “Disneyland Forever” fireworks show, which returned in April, will end their limited-time runs Sept. 1.
The parade and fireworks were part of a nighttime entertainment package that returned a year after the pandemic closure of the parks and that heralded the resumption of large-scale entertainment at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.
Disneyland's “Fantasmic!” and California Adventure's “World of Color” — which also returned in the spring — will continue their indefinite runs.
The “Disneyland Forever” slot in the entertainment schedule will be filled by the nightly “Halloween Screams” from Sept. 2-Oct. 31 — with fireworks shows on the weekends and projection-only performances on weekdays.
The parks won't be without a nighttime parade for more than a few days when the lights are doused once more on the electrical parade and the strains of “Baroque Hoedown” fade away again.
The Frightfully Fun Parade will run some nights from Sept. 6-Oct. 31 during the separate-admission, after-hours Oogie Boogie Bash at California Adventure.
Disneyland also has the Magic Happens parade in reserve — which ran for only a few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic closed the parks for more than a year in March 2020. Magic Happens can run in both daytime and nighttime modes.
Much like the Elliott the Dragon float, the Main Street Electrical Parade never seems to disappear for very long. The parade initially ran at Disneyland from 1972-1996 — when it famously “glowed away” forever with a long farewell.
It moved across the esplanade in 2001 to help boost lagging attendance at then-new California Adventure — where it stayed until 2010.
The original Disneyland Electrical Parade then traveled across the country for a run from 2010-2016 at Disney's Magic Kingdom in Florida. The Disneyland original returned home in 2017 for a limited-time run, with more in 2019 and 2022.
Will the parade ever return again to Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A.?
The Anaheim theme park just invested a lot of time, effort and money to create a new, seven-segment grand finale sequence that replaced the parade's 108-foot-long patriotic American float, titled “To Honor America.”
The new 118-foot “Togetherness” finale features a host of It's a Small World-style characters inspired by the designs of Disney Legend Mary Blair.
The new float includes more than a dozen Small World-like dolls based on characters from “Encanto,” “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Coco,” “Brave,” “Mulan,” “Princess and the Frog,” “Aladdin” and “Jungle Book.”
You may also see Disneyland's retiring fireworks show again — it is, after all, called “Forever.”
Like the electrical parade, “Disneyland Forever” has been around before. The “Forever” show from the park's 60th anniversary celebration in 2015 last returned to the skies above Disneyland in summer 2019.