Disney Facts: The Main Street Electrical Parade
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! The Magic Kingdom proudly presents our spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination. In thousands of sparkling lights, and electro-synthe-magnetic musical sounds: the Main Street Electrical Parade!”
With those words, the lights along Main Street in The Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World are turned off and the show begins. More than 80 performers on 23 floats head through park with synthesizer music blaring.
All the floats are battery-powered with about five miles of wires used throughout the floats. More than 500 batteries supply power for lighting, propulsion, audio and special effects, according to Disney.
The dancers’ costumes are composed of a total of 11,000 lights. Each dancer’s costume is powered by one battery pack.
The Main Street Electrical Parade premiered at Walt Disney World on June 11, 1977 (The original parade started at Disneyland in 1972 and was presented until 1996.) and has gone through three versions since. The first version closed on Sept. 14, 1991. The second version lasted from May 28, 1999 to April 1, 2001 and the latest started on June 6, 2010. The Main Street Electrical Parade ends its run at Disney World on Oct. 9, 2016 and will move to Disneyland in 2017.
