LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The Clark County Commission voted Tuesday to approve a parade on the Las Vegas Strip as part of EDC weekend.
This will be the first year the Electric Daisy Carnival will include a parade, which has been dubbed the World Party Parade. The festival will celebrate its 30th anniversary this year.
“As we looked into this 30-year moment, we wanted to come up with something that would really put a flag down here so all eyes would be on Las Vegas,” Zach Alpern, head of government affairs for Insomniac Events, said.
EDC Parade:
The parade is planned for Thursday, May 14, starting at 6 p.m. It will be free, open to the public, and consist of around 15 floats total, which will be grouped in packs of three to create five groups of entertainment.
The floats will feature “performers, entertainers, and marching bands,” according to information given at the Clark County Commission meeting. The parade is estimated to last around 2.5 hours and would be attended by approximately 30,000 people.
“Several millions of dollars that is going to matriculate into hospitality into the casino properties, any type of retail, including also staying in the hotel rooms itself,” Alpern said.
The parade would start at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds and head south on Las Vegas Boulevard, make a U-turn near Resorts World, and head back on the Strip to the Festival Grounds.
The Festival Grounds will then hold a “culminating celebration that will last for a few hours.”
A presentation at the commission meeting said the parade will be family-friendly, adding that it was not a “fourth day of EDC,” but instead would be its own event with its own identity.
The event will require a road closure on the Strip. Notably, the agenda for Tuesday’s commission meeting noted that it had “the potential to cause disorder, disturbances, excessive loitering, nuisances at or near Las Vegas Boulevard.”
“Security with open gate screening is sufficient we will be able to staff enough police officers for metro, and we use Henderson as partners as well,” Sgt. Tim Frederick with LVMPD Special Events said.
Only Commissioner April Becker voted against the parade, with every other commissioner voting to approve it.
Dates:
From May 15 through May 17, there will be more than 200 performances during the festival at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The theme for this year’s festival is kinetic JOURNEY, which organizers said is “a tribute to the vibrant path we’ve traveled together and will continue on.”
“Performing, dancing, engaging fans on the street, we expect to have confetti and were working through all those specifics, but any of the fun stuff people attribute to a parade should be very much the same as this,” Alpern added.
The lineup for this year’s festival can be found here.