Parades in the parks - CoasterBuzz

This is not only directed to members currently in high school, as it is to us old foggies who were once a part of parades in the parks.

I recently paid a visit to Kennywood this week, where they are celebrating "Fall Fantasy" as they have done every year since sliced bread was introduced. I was pleasantly surprised to see my alma mater performing along the midways on that particular evening. As the bands began their performances, I positioned myself along the midway across from the Jack Rabbit to watch the familiar red & white pass by to the tune of March Grandioso. Suddenly, I was recognized by the band director, who abruptly walked over and grabbed my arm, and invited me to walk along with the group of 140 band members, to which I was a part of for 5 years of my budding highschool life.

It truly brought back the memories of just over 12 years ago, when I, as a French Horn player, spent those 5 years as a member of this band Of all the performances we have done for the football games, parades, and special appearances at Three Rivers Stadium were neat, but it was really the park tours that were special! While it was a nice perk to have free admission to every park we performed at, there was something different about performing at the many parks. The smiles we brought to both the young and the old was really unique! Throughout my tenure, we performed as far away as WDW, and as near as CP, BGW, Hershey, (then) Geauga Lake and Kennywood.

I would be interested to hear how many of you out there are (or have been) a part of these parades? Where have you performed? What did you play (or do) in these parades?

*** This post was edited by Neil on 8/23/2001. ***

Our school's band and orchestra performed at Epcot this last spring. The orchestra, which I am a member of, was in the outside auditorium. The band marched in the mid-afternoon parade. Great experience, and a lot of fun.

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Kara
381 Laps

Last edited by ST chick,

Our school band did a parade in WDW two years ago. We got into all the Disney parks free for 5 days and we only actually paraded around for about 10 minutes. As (sort of) an added bonus, we got to change into our uniforms in the same rooms the costume characters change.
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Rollercoaster -PA
http://gandc.20m.com/index.html

ST chick said:
Our school's band performed at Epcot this last spring.

Yup, ours too. To bad I am not in band:(

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Ricochet: Bouncing to you in 2002, Only at King's Dominion!

This Saturday our band (McDowell High School, Erie, PA) is performing at SFWoA. Everyone's getting excited for the trip, and I hope we all do well!
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Yet another coaster-craving yuppie

Ah yes, Kennywood's Fall Fantasy,what memories! Marched in many a one. Even after I graduated and was studying music at WVU I wound marching with my old high school band there one August. I was acting as a chaparone and the director gave me a uniform saying he needed somebody to play the descant trumpet part. Nothing like sight reading while marching around the Lagoon!

When I visited Kennywood 3 weeks back, the Shriners held a parade. It was a slice of Americana. I loved it! Brought me back to the good ol' days.

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Yeeee Haaawwww!

This isn't a parade, but my junior high orchestra played at Disneyland once. We got about 2.5 hours in the park for free. "Whoopie." Disney was actually very cheap to us, continually talking about how great we did, while wasting our valuble time inside the park.