Credit: Inside the MagicDisney has officially axed one beloved parade with immediate effect.
Parades have been a time-honored tradition at Disney’s theme parks since 1955, with the very first park held at Disneyland for Thanksgiving. Led by Walt Disney and Fess Parker, who was dressed as Davy Crockett, the parade aired in an episode of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color entitled “Holiday Time at Disneyland,” giving way to a new Disney park staple that lives on to this day.
Disney’s Parade Tradition
As of 2024, at least one parade is held at every Disney resort worldwide. While not every park boasts its own parade (many, such as Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, axed their many years ago), these celebrations typically come and go with the season, with some parks retaining year-round staples.
Since 2020, Disneyland Park’s staple parade has been Magic Happens. This parade had the unfortunate luck of premiering as part of the park’s 65th-anniversary celebration just weeks before Disneyland Resort shuttered for COVID-19, but it made its triumphant return—complete with its endlessly catchy theme song, performed by Todrick Hall—in February 2023.
As is usually the case, this was put on pause on August 22, 2024, ahead of Disneyland Resort’s Halloween season. While many had assumed that it would return to the park post-holidays, yesterday, Disney announced its 70th-anniversary celebrations and 2025 schedule with no mention of Magic Happens.
Now, Disney has confirmed that Magic Happens will not be returning to Disneyland Park.
What’s Replacing Magic Happens?
Instead, the park will host Paint the Night – the beloved nighttime show that previously debuted at the park in May 2015. Its initial run lasted just under two years before hopping over to neighboring Disney California Adventure Park in 2018.
This move meant the parade had to axe its Frozen (2013) float due to the fact it was too tall to clear the Red Car Trolley’s overhead wires. With the parade returning to its OG park, it’ll be interesting to see whether this section is restored when Paint the Night returns in May.
Disneyland Resort won’t be totally bereft of a daytime parade. Disney California Adventure Park will host the daytime parade Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration – the parade that previously ran at California Adventure Park for Pixar Fest earlier this year – starting in May. This is an updated version of the Pixar Play Parade, which ran at the park sporadically between 2008 and 2017.
Even with this addition, Disneyland Resort feels incomplete without a daytime parade. Parades and fireworks are the cornerstones of a classic Disney castle park experience, and the omission stands out even more during a 70th-anniversary celebration steeped in nostalgia. With highlights like a new Walt Disney show featuring a Walt animatronic and the nostalgia-packed Wondrous Journeys nighttime spectacular, the absence of a parade leaves a glaring void in the lineup.
Other additions for the 70th anniversary include the debut of a new iteration of World of Color at Disney California Adventure Park, replacing the widely criticized World of Color—ONE.
The Emotions of the Inside Out franchise will host a new show, World of Color Happiness!, in May. This will take inspiration from Walt Disney’s words from the opening day park dedication from seven decades ago (“To all who come to this happy place… welcome!”) and feature music and scenes from the likes of The Lion King (1994), A Goofy Movie (1995), Tangled (2010) and more.
How do you feel about the loss of Magic Happens?