Holiday Light Show & Carriage Parade
This past Saturday evening, we went to Cleveland’s annual tree-lighting/carriage parade. This was for the million-or-so holiday lights strung around Public Square as well as the tree just in front of the Terminal Tower building. Here’s the Plain Dealer article on the event, as well as the American Legion parade that took place earlier that day, unnoticed by us.
The event can be divided into three or four parts. First there was waiting, as we had gotten there about half an hour early. Fortunately, it wasn’t that cold, and there was a Starbuck’s promotional van there, giving away free samplers of their holiday drinks. The Plain Dealer noted that there were about 25,000 people there; certainly it was sparser than the July 4th event, where we couldn’t get closer than the northern edge of Public Square. This time, we were standing on Superior and W. 3rd, more or less in the middle of the action.
Next came the speeches by Santa, dignitaries, the high school band, and Dan Aykroyd, who was in town for the grand opening of the Cleveland House of Blues. We had walked by the HoB earlier and noticed the sold out show for the Blues Brothers, but didn’t think Ayrkoyd would really be in town (I suppose I assumed it would be a tribute show of some kind). Disappointingly, rather than appear in person, the mayor chose to do a pre-recorded speech that was broadcast on the big screen. I actually had no idea what the mayor looked like until then, as the official site does not have a picture.
The main part of the event was the parade of restored horse carriages. There were about fifty, drawn by everything from Shetland ponies to Clydesdales. Dan Aykroyd was in the first carriage, but I missed it because I was busy fiddling with camera settings. Santa was at the end, actually in a fire truck rather than a carriage. This was an idiotic way to present him, mainly because he sat in the cab and was almost invisible, especially to anyone on the driver’s side of the truck; most of the crowd therefore missed him.
After the parade wound north on W. 3rd, there was a small fireworks show behind the grand stand in the middle of Public Square. It wasn’t bad for what it was, though nothing compared to the big show fired off the Terminal Tower for the 4th. Anyway, photos are below:
(Quick note: the white balance for the sodium lights approximates incandescent, though not perfectly)