(Update) In a follow-up post, Disneyland announced that the Main Street Electrical Parade will come to Disneyland "early next year" and that Paint the Night would continue to run on "select nights" during the holiday season.
Disneyland earlier had announced that its current nighttime electrical parade — Paint the Night — would close with the rest of the 60th anniversary Diamond Celebration on Sept. 5. There was no word in today's original announcement about what will happen to Paint the Night — whether it would replace the MSEP at Disney World, go to Disneyland Paris, or return to Disneyland at some later date. (We'd previously ruled out the Asian parks as potential destinations for the parade. Hong Kong already has it. Shanghai doesn't need a new parade yet. And Tokyo, because it is owned by a different company, typically doesn't get hand-me-downs from the other Disney parks.)
We'll have to wait for specific dates on when the Main Street Electrical Parade would begin shows at Disneyland (or Disney California Adventure), or for how long it would run. It's hard to imagine that the return of the Main Street Electrical Parade would elicit as much support from fans as Paint the Night has during its 15-month run. The Main Street Electrical Parade's 1970s technology looks and sounds ancient compared with the LED displays on Paint the Night. And Disneyland fans have gotten an "encore performance" of the ELP before, when it ran at Disney California Adventure for several years before being sent back to Florida in 2010. That run didn't move attendance at DCA, either.
As we mentioned on Twitter when this rumor first surfaced:
It's time for Disney to stop running the Main Street Electrical Parade. Don't send it to Disneyland. Just give it a dignified close.
— Theme Park Insider (@ThemePark) August 8, 2016
Sad but true. My childhood is intrinsically linked to this parade, but it hasn't aged well. Time to pull the plug. https://t.co/TyYSqQb2Eb
— Matthew Gottula (@DLthings) August 8, 2016
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I think you have become a bit jaded. Perhaps you should consider what the public at large is saying instead of what your opinion is.
P.S.: Electrical Parade is wildly popular at WDW. I don't undersand this decision at all.
I would think that the cost of shipping the parades is significant, so I can't imagine shipping PTN to Florida after just 16 months. Magic Kingdom has an awesome daytime parade, Disneyland should keep PTN to balance the long in the tooth Mickey's Soundsational Parade. If it's a budget concern, just run PTN on the weekends.
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