1994 Denver Parade of Lights: Rocky Mountain News >>"This year's parade theme is 'Share the Spirit,' and will include floats such as The Nutcracker, The Candy Cane Express and Santa's Sleigh. U.S. Olympic Festival-'95 hopefuls and local media celebrities also will participate." Denver Post: >>"The toy soldiers and Raggedy Ann dolls of the Wolverine Pride marching band hope to light their way to a third consecutive best-lit band title this weekend at the 20th annual Parade of Lights, which marches through downtown at 7:30 tonight and 7 p.m. tomorrow.
Eighty members of the band and flag group from Thornton's Skyview High School use more than 5,000 lights for their display, said Steve Mallinson, who along with Ledon Wire directs the band.
"Our outfits are basic uniforms with wind-up keys on the back that light up like toy soldiers. Our flag group members are Raggedy Ann dolls with lighted giant lollipops, five or six feet long," Mallinson said.
The students also deck their silver and black uniforms with 40 Christmas tree lights. The musicians light up their instruments with another 20 or so lights. Each student carries a battery pack.
Their banner is framed in traveling lights powered by a car battery pulled along in a wagon.
"We spend about $ 200 to $ 300 on batteries," Mallinson said.
But the top group out of 10 featured bands wins $ 800, while second- and third-place finishers will take home $ 600 and $ 400 prizes, respectively.
The bands' music sets the mood for the giant balloons and elaborate floats that create oohs and aahs along the downtown route. "Share the Spirit" is the theme for this year's parade, produced by the Downtown Denver Partnership.
Three new balloons debut tonight: Shari Lewis' Hush Puppy, Albert the Dinosaur and Chilly Willy, the cartoon penguin.
Other large balloons will include a holiday stocking, toy soldier, Rudolph, a 50-foot long flying reindeer, and Whirly Twirly, a 78-foot-tall holiday clown covered with 40 gallons of paint that took three months to apply."
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1996 Denver Post: >>Walt Disney would have been proud.
'We came to see the Dalmatians,' said Aurora resident Brian La Fleur, 25.
He and his family were among an estimated 150,000 people who lined downtown Denver streets Friday night to witness the 22nd annual Parade of Lights. The parade will be repeated again at 6 tonight.
A highlight of Friday's parade were 101 real Dalmatians, some dressed in red coats, that pranced, walked and sniffed their way into the hearts of the crowd, which oohed and aahed as they passed. 'Slow down, I'm trying to count you!' shouted La Fleur, who eventually tallied 101. Boos soon followed as Cruella DeVil in a sleek white roadster came after the dogs.
DeVil and the Dalmatians were Target Stores' tribute to the new Disney film.<<
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1997 Rocky Mountain News:>>In 23 years, weather has never knocked out the Parade of Lights. But a blizzard more than a month old still had organizers scrambling just days before this year's holiday procession. Officials thought they had Mother Nature beat after moving all the floats into a west Denver warehouse prior to last October's blizzard. Everyone breathed easy knowing the backbone for the Parade of Lights was safely tucked away while more than two feet of snow buried the Front Range.
Then the roof came crashing in. 'The entire warehouse roof caved in, right after we moved in,' said Kip Farris, one of two brothers who has been in charge of designing and building the floats for the past 15 years. 'We're still dealing with the aftermath of that. There are still some floats in there that are blocked and we have to find a way to get them out.' Yet Farris was confident earlier this week that he'd have every float extricated from the collapsed warehouse in time for today's parade. It begins at 8 p.m. and runs again at 6 p.m. Saturday. Organizers expect as many as 350,000 spectators for the two parades. Tonight's version will be broadcast live on KUSA-Channel 9, and re-broadcast at 8 p.m. Dec. 13. Admission along the parade route is free, except for grandstand seating in front of the City and County Building. (Tickets there are $ 12 for adults, $ 8 for children ages 4-12. Children 3 and under are free.) The route is the same as it has been for the past several years, starting at the City and County Building and ending at 14th Street and Glenarm Place, after winding for two miles through downtown Denver. The parade marches toward lower downtown on 17th Street and back toward the City and County Building on 15th Street. For Farris, digging out from the warehouse mishap was like unearthing the past 15 years of his life. He was a Denver-area artist working on murals and movie sets in 1982 when he took over the job of designing, building and maintaining floats for the annual procession. 'We basically started from nothing,' he said. 'We took over a parade that went one block around Larimer Square.' He began with six basic floats, none of which still exists in the current armada. 'The parade has gotten bigger and better over time, and our work has grown more mature as we've continued,' said Farris, who buys glitter in 100-pound cans to decorate the intricate, moving sets depicting a Gingerbread House, Adventures in Toyland and the Nutcracker. He now designs and builds floats for 10 different parades, many of them in San Francisco. But Farris has returned to Colorado each winter with new ideas. This year he added a 20-foot-tall African doll to celebrate Kwanzaa, as well as a large Mexican doll to join the Chinese doll that debuted last year. (A new float for 9News - which took over sponsorship this year - also had to be built). Like Farris' floats, the rest of the parade continues to grow. This year, the 9News Parade of Lights will use 144 people to guide 12 balloons bigger than trailer homes along the route. New balloons include Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat and the Grinch, as well as an inflated crocodile that's nearly as long as two 16th Street Mall shuttle buses laid end-to-end. There will also be horse-drawn stagecoaches, in-line skaters wearing Victorian costumes, unicyclists, carolers, and the obligatory marching bands and drill teams. The entire procession will take about an hour. For Farris, he now has his family helping him. His brother Kris, sister-in-law Sherri and 22-year-old daughter Briel were all working overtime to help free the floats from the warehouse this week. But the Farris family can't complain. Mother Nature has dealt harder breaks in the days before a big parade. 'We did one parade in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and a large ice storm moved in the night before,' Kip Farris said. 'We had six feet of ice in front of the door to the warehouse where all the floats were stored. We were out there all night with shovels and heaters chipping away at the ice.'
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1999 Rocky Mountain News: >> A total of 49 floats, bands and other entertainment will be in the parade, which winds through downtown for about an hour.
Mickey Mouse serves as grand marshal.
Five of nine floats will be new. They include: the Carousel; the Clock Tower, in which the May D&F Tower and the Denver skyline are replicated; and the Ship of Dreams, which is a giant 19th-century sailing vessel.
Two of the new floats are replacing older ones - the Nutcracker and the Santa Sleigh.
Two giant balloons also will grace the parade this year. One is a 40-foot seahorse, which will make its world debut in the Parade of Lights; the other is a 45-foot snowman.
Three old favorites, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Toy Soldier and the Gingerbread Man, will return.
A number of cultural performers, including representatives from Armenian, French and Mestizo dance groups, will be part of the international portion of the procession.
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In other words, religious themes have never been part of this parade. It's always been about Santa, and Rudolph, the Nutcracker, and Toyland.
But that fact won't help Rush and Sean sell radio ads, or O'Reilly sell TV ads. |
