I'll grant that the original was more primitive. It wasn't until the later 70's that the majority of the parade became the full-sized floats we know today. I wasn't there, of course, but it's an acknowledged fact that the full development cycle of the original parade from brainstorm to dress rehearsal was something like 8 months. There's a great article from the Seattle Times that walks through the early history and is well sourced: https://www.seattletimes.com/life/t...d-electrical-parade-which-returns-in-january/
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MSEP to Return to WDW for 50th Celebration?
- Thread starter Imagineerwannabe
- Start date
I'll grant that the original was more primitive. It wasn't until the later 70's that the majority of the parade became the full-sized floats we know today. I wasn't there, of course, but it's an acknowledged fact that the full development cycle of the original parade from brainstorm to dress rehearsal was something like 8 months. There's a great article from the Seattle Times that walks through the early history and is well sourced: https://www.seattletimes.com/life/t...d-electrical-parade-which-returns-in-january/
Walter Elias Disney
Well-Known Member
Now this was a celebration...Disneyland's 50th Parade of Dreams... Why doesn't WDW get the same treatment?
prberk
Well-Known Member
Exactly. As I have said earlier in this thread, this is a billion-dollar company that builds movie sets every day, including last minute changes at the whim of directors -- not to mention the company with the single most experience in parades. Not only that, but unlike city parades, they actually own the entire street and staging area that the parade will use. They don't need to work with police or transportation departments for approvals (as would, say, Macy's). They own the entire infrastructure.
There is ZERO reason that they could not build a new parade (even an updated version of Spectro). It is completely a matter of will. Period.
Bocabear
Well-Known Member
The elaborate Rose Bowl floats are usually constructed in less than a year...they have a couple years left to do this.... They absolutely CAN do this in the time allotted... If it does not happen it is because they don't want to spend the money... While they continue to hike the prices of everything... More and more for less and less...but here are a couple replacements for attractions we closed...
scottieRoss
Well-Known Member
Time for a reality check.
Electrical parades would require incredible amounts of time to prepare. The physical design and building might be doable, however, the programing of the lights is very intensive.
I have one of those crazy Christmas houses with the synchronized lighting. It takes a full year to program the lighting for the Christmas show. Each bulb has to be programmed for color and timing individually. Mine is separated into 1/10 of a second slices. The majority of the Osbourne lights took a year to program using simple Lightorama software where whole strings were programmed (except the canopy) which also took another year to program. A full light parade using color-changing pixels would involve millions of DMX channels.
Electrical parades would require incredible amounts of time to prepare. The physical design and building might be doable, however, the programing of the lights is very intensive.
I have one of those crazy Christmas houses with the synchronized lighting. It takes a full year to program the lighting for the Christmas show. Each bulb has to be programmed for color and timing individually. Mine is separated into 1/10 of a second slices. The majority of the Osbourne lights took a year to program using simple Lightorama software where whole strings were programmed (except the canopy) which also took another year to program. A full light parade using color-changing pixels would involve millions of DMX channels.
prberk
Well-Known Member
I know it is not a parade, but let me tell you a story:
I had a friend who whose parents were both in bad health, but who had already done their own funeral arrangements and long ago paid for burial plots side by side on a beautiful hill in a local cemetery. When the mother passed away, the father was still in the nursing care and their children went to the cemetery as part of finalizing the funeral arrangements for their mother.
The cemetery pulled up the records and found that they had accidentally let a tree grow over and into the spot where my friends' parents had long ago purchased their burial plot. They had long known that they would be buried in that spot and had picked it on purpose. My friend's mother had died thinking everything was taken care of and where she would be buried. Her husband was now in hospice thinking the same. This was a Friday, and the children had planned to have the funeral on Tuesday when everyone would still be in town and planned to be there.
The cemetery apologized and offered a new spot for her mother in a far corner, and down in a corner. They said that they should not have let the tree grow there, that it was a mistake in maintenance, but that they could not have the tree removed and the burial site prepared in time for a funeral on Tuesday.
My friend's brothers told the cemetery official that they were all contractors and knew that what she saying was not true. They knew that a tree service could in fact remove the tree over the weekend, and it would cost the cemetery overtime rates to get it done -- but that it could be done. My friend kindly but firmly told them that her mother died thinking that everything was taken care of and that she would be buried in the spot that she had paid for long ago, and that her father is in hospice thinking the same. She told them that they are planning for a funeral on Tuesday with burial the same day in the spot on the hill where her mother had expected to be buried, and that the tree would be gone and the land prepped.
They had her funeral on Tuesday in the spot on the hill that she had planned for. (And her husband a few months later.)
Some things can get done when there is a will to do it.
And as for programming lights and so forth: Yes, it can be hard, but we are talking about the company that owns Industrial Light and Magic and Pixar and has the most experience in parades and related show prep. They could even build on previous plans like Spectro. But they could do it. Don't tell me that they do not have the resources to put on a parade within a year.
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Bocabear
Well-Known Member
Disney is not hiring someone to program a parade by themselves working part time at home... It would be a whole professional team with the latest technology and knowledge, building a parade in a facility designed for that purpose. If you built a house by yourself it would take a lot longer than a team of carpenters and workers hired to do the task... Your Reality Check point is moot. There are professionals that do this sort of programming every day.
brb1006
Well-Known Member
The sad thing is Disneyland's 50th Anniversary pretty much marked the final time the Disney Parks actually had a special daytime anniversary parade.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
True, but the Rose Bowl floats are built by individuals both in the form of volunteers and corporation sponsorship. There is no limit to how many volunteers that a single float might have and it still takes a year to build it. Disney is the only organization that works on all of the floats and with limited numbers of people that can do the actual build and set up the time to do that has to be expanded. Not only that but the floats that the RB has will be used only once in one parade and then will be trashed. The quality of the build only has to last a couple of hours any build that Disney does has to last night after night after night for years and years.
We've had this discussion before when talking about building a park or a section of a park. It is always cited that EPCOT was built in three years from a plot of land. What is forgotten is that every single attraction, decoration, landscaping and technical aspect had it's own team so since most were started at the same time, it actually took three years to build any single attraction. About the same as it takes today. In order to be critical we all need to find a way to see the bigger picture.
World_Showcase_Lover007
Well-Known Member
Well I’m pretty sure that Walt Disney built Disneyland in only seven days, so....
...never mind.
...never mind.
scottieRoss
Well-Known Member
Bocabear
Well-Known Member
Well Scottie let's just say I do...
I do commercial lighting as a career.
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
If Disney is really too cheap and/or lazy to give us a new nighttime parade, I'd much rather have Main Street Electrical Parade back than no nighttime parade at all.
scottieRoss
Well-Known Member
Since you do commercial lighting, i would assume you are familiar with DMX channels for control. How many channels are you used to programing?
I’m well aware of the realities of modern lighting control systems, and work full time in a related industry.
The ‘reality check’ is that the Walt Disney company once staged a never-before-seen and state-of-the-art parade with less then 8 months from initial concept to rolling down Main Street. The technical challenges that had to be overcome to make that happen in 1972 pale in comparison to the off-the-shelf resources that are available in the industry today.
Another reality is that equivalently large light shows are routinely designed and implemented for theatrical, concert, and special event productions with well under a year lead-time and only days / weeks of physical ‘programming time’. You’re not changing the color of individual bulbs manually on the timeline, entire canvases of lights are mapped with custom media or set into patterns using the sophisticated effects generation software currently available on high end lighting boards.
I don’t doubt you put a lot of time and love into your Christmas display, but I’m sure you’re operating under a reasonable budget and not spending a couple million on hardware. It’s a much different world when you start tossing money at it, and Disney of all companies has money to toss. But they won’t.
Bocabear
Well-Known Member
oh honey I don't do the programming...lol
We hire people for that.
Yes I am familiar with the technology and how it works and the processes. That still doesn't mean it takes three years to program the lights on a parade float...
scottieRoss
Well-Known Member
I actually use the same software and hardware system that Disney used for Lights of Winter, Osbourne and PTN. It controls AC circuits, Pixels, Servo automation, and interactivity as well as Audio and Video systems using a combination of RS-485 and e1.31