How Does Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Work?

and celebrities create a carnival esque atmosphere. For more than eighty years, the parade has drawn spectators who line the streets and cheer on the participants. Covering two and a half miles, the three hour spectacle runs from nine am to noon. The holiday event has grown and grown over time from a small parade of floats and live animals organized by Macy's employees into a large scale, annual tradition

to this day. Though apart from performing talent, all other parade participants, such as balloon handlers, are Macy's employees and their family and friends. The parade showcases more than eight thousand participants and crowds. More than three point five million spectators cram Manhattan streets for a close up view. Another fifty million watched the parade on TV. So how did we get here? Macy's Department Store celebrates its sixty one

anniversary in twenty nineteen. The store staged its first Thanksgiving Day parade in nine. That year, it was called the Macy's Christmas Parade, and it featured three floats pulled by horses, four bands, and zoo animals from these Central Park Zoo, including camels, donkeys, elephants, and goats. Santa Claus was last in the lineup, a tradition that continues to this day. It was all staged by and at the request of Macy's employees, many of whom had just emigrated to America

from Europe and longed to celebrate their new home. In seven, the gigantic balloons that are now the signature element of the parade made their first appearance. With the help of helium. The balloons replaced the zoo animals that were frightening to some children, and the first balloons included cartoon characters like phil Cat. At the conclusion of the parade, the giant

balloons were released into the air. In nineteen twenty eight, Macy's began offering a one dollar reward for any returned balloons, which were fixed with the return address label. In nineteen thirty one, pilot Colonel Clarence E. Chamberlain snagged a balloon with his airplane's wings, leading to a ban on retrieval by airplanes. The following year, and after the nineteen thirty two parade, another pilot attempted to capture a balloon and

nearly crashed, leading Macy's to discontinue releasing the balloons. At the parade's end. In nineteen thirty four, celebrities became an important element of the parade, but singer actor Eddie Canter joining the event that year. The Mickey Mouse helium balloon was also introduced to that year to parade goers. From nineteen forty two to nineteen forty four, the parade was canceled because of the shortage of helium and rubber during World War Two. Those three years are the only time

that the celebration has ever been called off. When the parade returned in nineteen forty five, it was broadcast on television for the first time and was bigger that our lear versions, but the floats didn't achieve their current spectacle status until nineteen sixty nine, when one Manfred Bass began creating them. Bass designed them so that they could be flattened for their trip through the Holland Tunnel. They were

then reassembled during the pre dawn hours of the parade. Today, Macy's begins planning for the parade at least a year in advance, and includes float and balloon creation, celebrity booking, volunteer coordination, and training for clowns and balloon handlers. As the parade grows closer, the preparations get more intense. In nineteen Macy's is celebrating its ninety third parade with twenty six floats, sixteen giant helium character balloons, and forty heritage

and novelty balloons and eleven marching bands. But let's talk about those balloons. In a former Tutsi roll factory in Hoboken, New Jersey, just across the river from New York City, the balloons are created by the Macy's Parade Studio. It all starts with the pencil sketch. Aerodynamic and engineering consultants assist with calculations to make sure the balloon will fly properly. Exact scale replicas, one made out of clay and one a painted model are fashioned before the actual balloon is

cut out of fabric. Each balloon has several chambers and includes a zipper, an inflation device, and a high pressure valve. Flight inflation and deflation tests are run and cosmetic adjustments are made. Finally, the balloon can appear in the parade up to a year after the process began. Balloons these days are constructed of polyurethane, though they used to be

made of rubber. Since the switch from air to helium, these behemouth balloons have coasted along with a big dose of help from volunteer balloon wranglers, but it hasn't always been that easy to keep the balloons afloat. In nineteen fifty eight, the balloons were filled with air and hoisted by cranes onto trucks due to a helium shortage and poor weather conditions kept the balloons from being inflated at

all in nineteen seventy one. The balloons dimensions vary, but most are about five to six stories high and somewhere around sixty feet long and thirty feet wide. Each balloon needs around ninety handlers. In all, there are around two to three thousand balloon handlers for the parade. These handlers must weigh at least a hundred and twenty pounds and be in good health. Of those, only a few hundred team leaders are required to attend training, though all are invited.

Training includes lessons on aerodynamics, geometry, and physics. Then volunteers practice handling one of the big balloons on a field. The team leaders include an overall leader, pilot, captain, and two drivers. A police officer marches with each balloon. The handlers hold the ropes to guide the balloon, and each balloon is also tethered to to eight hundred pound utility vehicles.

Instruments that measure the speed of wind, called anemometers I think, are mounted on poles at key points along the route, and each one is monitored with a portable computer by a police officer and a New York City Office of

Emergency Management representative. Well before the parade begins, objects that could obstruct balloons, including arms of lamp posts, traffic signal polls, street lights, and trees, are either altered or remove On the eve of the parade, the balloons and floats are brought to New York City and set up begins by six am on Thanksgiving Day, the balloons and floats are ready to go, and parade participants take their places for

the nine am parade start. After the parade, floats are immediately disassembled, balloons deflated, and all are returned to their warehouse in Hoboken. Today's episode was written by Kathleen Seiler Neary and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a

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