Making Memories: Main Street Brightens in New Electric Ways

on August 3, 2021

Each week through the Walt Disney World 50th anniversary, we will be taking a look back at various parades, entertainment, and nighttime spectaculars throughout the history of the resort. Walt Disney World has seen so many different things come and go throughout its 50 year history. So, let’s take a look back at what people remember dearly or forgot quickly.

The Main Street Electrical Parade is a staple in Disney Parks history. Its story doesn’t start with a parade on land however. As part of the opening ceremonies of Walt Disney World Resort the Electrical Water Pageant debuted in what was first thought to be a temporary offering. The Electrical Water Pageant remains at Walt Disney World to this day.

The Electrical Water Pageant travels along the shorelines of Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake delighting guests staying in the Magic Kingdom resorts. The pageant is made of wire forms bolted to essentially pontoon or boat platforms. On board the boats would be generators and speakers to pump out the iconic music that accompanies the show. 33 of these pontoon boats were used for the pageant. Disney found the most issues with navigating the pontoons on the water bridge between Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake. Disney even tested launching pyro from the pontoons in addition to the lighting. The pyro went off without much issue but the barges sustained heavy damage which ended that idea.

Once the Electrical Water Pageant was operating and became incredibly popular with guests, Disney CEO Card Walker wanted to bring something like that to Disneyland. This led to the Main Street Electrical Parade which first debuted in Disneyland in June 1972. Each parade float was powered by 500 nickel-cadmium batteries and the parade included 500,000 lights. The incredibly catchy and now famous tune “Baroque Hoedown” played in sync with the lighting. Disney worked day and night to get the Main Street Electrical Parade up and running after several issues during development. From power concerns, to lights that were used. The parade seemed doomed. Main Street Electrical Parade only had one rehearsal prior to debut and floats broke, cast members were shocked, and floats couldn’t make the whole route. June 17th, 1972 came and the parade was set to make its debut at Disneyland. The parade debuted and was an instant success.

With that success meant other parks took notice. The Main Street Electrical Parade debuted in Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom on June 11th, 1977. Disneyland saw an upgraded Electrical Parade debut on this day and Magic Kingdom got a nearly identical version to that. This version was nearly entirely three-dimensional whereas the original was mostly two-dimensional. The biggest difference between the Walt Disney World and Disneyland version were size. They built the Walt Disney World floats wider. In 1979, the parade added the very popular “To Honor America” float which became the finale to the parade.

Walt Disney World’s Main Street Electrical Parade ran from 1977 to 1991 when it was replaced by a brand new parade, SpectroMagic (but more on that later). In 1992, the Main Street Electrical Parade from Magic Kingdom was sent off to Disneyland Paris where it ran until 2003. In 2005, it then moved to Hong Kong Disneyland but it never actually ran there. The Magic Kingdom version would end up never running again.

Come 1999, SpectroMagic was in need of some work and Disney hired a third party to recreate the Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade so it could make a return to Walt Disney World. The Main Street Electrical Parade made its Magic Kingdom re-debut in May 1999. The parade ran until April 1st, 2001 when SpectroMagic returned. The floats were sent back to Disneyland but not to run at Disneyland park this time. The parade would debut at Disney California Adventure to try and boost attendance figures at the new Disneyland Resort park. Disney added a new float to the parade in 2009 which would be the first new float in roughly 20 years.

Once again in 2010, the parade made a cross country trek to Walt Disney World where it re-debuted in June 2010. It ran at Walt Disney World until October 2016 and then would return back to Disneyland again in 2017. The parade ended September 30th, 2019 at Disneyland and has not returned anywhere since. It remains to be seen if the parade will ever return again or if Magic Kingdom will see a new nighttime parade at some point.

What are some of your Main Street Electrical Parade memories?

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