Want to know Disney’s secret weapon for handling the biggest crowds in the theme park industry? Parades.
Managing a successful theme park is like playing a giant game of Tetris. At every moment, you are trying to direct people into the right empty spaces to maximize the number of people you can fit into the park. By the middle of the day, however, there are no empty queues in a popular park such as Disneyland.
Those are the perfect times for a parade. Parades give a temporary boost to park capacity, drawing people to the route and taking some of the pressure off queues throughout the park. But to do that, a parade has to offer a good enough show to entice enough people away from the park’s regular attractions.
Last week, I flew to Orlando to see one of the first performances of Disney’s latest parade, Disney Starlight. I wanted to see if Disney could continue its winning record with nighttime parades, a streak that began with the Main Street Electrical Parade and continued through the return this year to Disneyland of Paint the Night.
Disney Starlight offers a different vibe than the nonstop party of Paint the Night. Subtitled “Dream the Night Away,” Disney Starlight is a bedtime story for Disney fans of all ages, offering 10 new floats that look like they are gliding on starlight.
Like with pretty much all Disney parades these days, each float represents a different Disney franchise, starting with the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio, who is making our wishes upon the stars come true. The tech impresses, with a blend of lighting effects, screens and practical construction that rewards close attention.
That’s good for boosting that industry-leading attendance if fans decide to come back for a second look. But Disney Starlight lacks the flood of dancers that accompany parades such as Paint the Night and Magic Happens. Those performers help create a dynamic connection with the street that the already somewhat subdued Disney Starlight lacks. Here’s hoping that Disney opens its budget in future years to plus this show with additional performers.
On the other side of Disney’s world, Hong Kong Disneyland is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year with Friendtastic!, its first new parade since it debuted Paint the Night in 2014. As its name implies, this daytime parade celebrates friend groups among the Disney characters, giving it a similar theme to Disney California Adventure’s Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration!, with which it shares a gratuitous use of exclamation points.
Friendtastic! includes plenty of dancers to accompany its 11 floats, including a stunning Encanto float that is so laden with animated flowers that it puts many Rose Parade floats to shame. The parade also pauses for dance breaks at spots along the parade route.
For plenty of fans, the quality of these shows won’t matter as much as how effectively they help reduce wait times elsewhere in the park. But for Disney fans who want a creative new way to spend time with their favorite characters, Disney’s new parades deliver.