LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- When the “Main Street Electrical Parade” returns to Magic Kingdom for a limited engagement this summer, the cherished Disney nighttime spectacle will have a new glow. Tinker Bell will sprinkle her pixie dust to illuminate the classic parade. The parade’s highly recognizable musical theme will be brightened by new technology.
The parade, which normally is featured at Disneyland Resort in California, was last at Walt Disney World Resort from 1999 into 2001. But as it returns to Magic Kingdom to headline “Summer Nightastic!” June 6 through Aug. 14, 2010, “Main Street Electrical Parade” will be showcasing lots of features never before seen – or heard – in Florida.
Tinker Bell leads the procession on an all-new float, and her trail of pixie dust enchants all the parade floats with new beauty along the way. The popular pixie waves from the basket of a balloon floating gracefully above a magical garden shimmering with fairy light.
In addition, enhanced versions of two classic favorites will return to the lineup after a 13-year hiatus – the shimmering diamond mine of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the Pleasure Island haunts of Pinocchio.
WHAT: The parade twinkles with approximately half a million lights. Of those, nearly 10,000 are new “pixie dust” lights spread over the 23 parade floats. The new LED lights use one-quarter of the power of incandescent lights. The Tinker Bell float alone has more than 25,000 points of light and 75 percent are powered by an LED source.
WHEN: Nightly beginning Sunday, June 6, and continuing through Saturday, Aug. 14, in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort.
LIGHTS ON DEMAND: A new control system makes it possible, for the first time, for each light to be programmed individually. One example is the new Tinker Bell float, which has 160 dimmers, by far the most of any parade float, to control the lighting. Programming for this parade took approximately two months.
AN EVEN BETTER HOEDOWN: The unforgettable musical theme of the “Main Street Electrical Parade,” which has inspired several generations of Disneyland Resort guests to clap along, was adapted from a synthesizer piece known as “Baroque Hoedown,” written in 1967 by Gershon Kingsley and Jean-Jaques Perrey. Disney themes are superimposed over the original piece. For “Summer Nightastic!,” the distinctive “electro-sytho-magnetic” “Baroque Hoedown” has new audio technology that gives it a richer, fuller sound.