Main Street Electrical Parade Fun Facts

As you know, the Main Street Electrical parade is set to stay at the Walt Disney World resort for an undetermined amount of time (possibly for a few years), so let's read some facts about, shall we?:

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MAIN STREET ELECTRICAL PARADE FUN FACTS 

1) More than 80 performers appear in each presentation of Disney’s “Main Street Electrical Parade.”

2) There are 11,000 lights on the dancers’ costumes alone.  Thanks to the energy-efficient LED lights, some of the dancers’ costumes now carry only one battery pack instead of two.

3) All the floats are battery-powered.  More than 500 batteries supply power for lighting, propulsion, audio and special effects.

4) Approximately five miles of wire is used throughout the floats.

5) The tallest float in the parade is the “Cinderella” clock tower, at 18.5 feet tall.

6) The Fireworks Finale float, the longest in the parade, has seven cars that span 118 feet.

MAIN STREET ELECTRICAL PARADE HISTORY

• The original “Main Street Electrical Parade” premiered at Disneyland on June 17, 1972.
• The parade was presented at Disneyland nearly every summer until 1996.
• A version of the “Main Street Electrical Parade” was created for Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort in 1977.
• The Magic Kingdom version was presented until 1991 when it was replaced by “SpectroMagic” (“Main Street Electrical Parade” was refurbished for the opening of Disneyland Paris).
• The original Disneyland “Main Street Electrical Parade” was transported to Florida and extensively refurbished for a limited engagement at Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom from 1999 into 2001.
• Following the conclusion of the parade’s limited engagement at Walt Disney World Resort, it premiered at Disney California Adventure in July 2001 as “Disney’s Electrical Parade.”
• “Summer Nightastic!” in 2010 marked the start of a second limited-engagement return of the original Disneyland “Main Street Electrical Parade” to Walt Disney World Resort.
• The parade has been performed more than 5,000 times at Disneyland Resort.
• The original “Main Street Electrical Parade” floats were “flatter” and less three-dimensional than the current floats. While new floats have been added through the years, some have been retired: “it’s a small world” float, Briny Deep float, and special anniversary floats for Disneyland’s 25th anniversary (1980) and Mickey Mouse’s 60th anniversary (1988), and the Blue Fairy float (replaced by the Tinker Bell float).
• One of the original floats, the Title Drum Unit near the beginning of the parade, was created using an actual bass drum, one of the world’s largest in 1972.  This drum had been used in Disneyland parades in the 1960s, when Mickey Mouse used to beat it using large drumsticks.

A third version of the parade has been presented at Tokyo Disney Resort (premiering 1985).

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Aren't these some great fun facts? Stay tuned for more to come.

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