I am just learning so I don't know much. It is hard trying to teach yourself..lol The main thing I did was switch my camera to the first manual mode so that I could change my ISO and control when I wanted my flash to go off. Night shots need NO flash when you are trying to pick up bright lit colors. It will take away all the real coloring in the pic. Change the ISO up to 800-1600. I have a little of both depending on the lighting.. If you are propping the camera or have a tripod though you can keep your settings much lower. 1600 takes the pic the fastest so that you don't risk camera shake and blurry pics but your pics may come out a little more noisy with that setting..though not bad. 100 takes the prettiest pics as far as the least noise but I only use that setting for bright day lit pics as it takes pics the slowest and you will end up with blurred ones at night.
Give that a try with just some random night pics and see what ya think. If you can ever find anywhere to prop your camera and lower the iso that is always good too.
Oh and for my night time parade pics I did use my flash in those for the most psrt b/c there was not enough light and since they were moving they would have all come out blurred without it even with my iso set way up.
Ok, hope that did not sound confusing. I am not sure of all the lingo and such b/c like I said I have just been playing with it and trying to teach myself.