The AP area is right at the beginning along a small narrow area of sidewalk that gets extremely crowded. I stood there and it is NOT a good location to see the floats, or catch beads. Go up the street about 100 feet and find a wide area of sidewalk. I did my second trip and got twice the number of beads and was a lot happier. The floats at the AP area are making a turn and throwing beads is very awkward for the throwers.