Paint the Night... So close yet so far

[MouseEXP]

Could Paint the Night, finally be the true follow up to the beloved Main Street Electrical Parade?
Of course, I have already given that credit to the spectacular Dreamlights parade at Tokyo Disneyland (YouTube it), but since I have only seen that show twice in 10 years, I really wanted to love Paint the Night.

Sure the effects are terrific, but I can't help but think it is missing something.
It seems short.
The pacing seems off.
For some reason, I thought this parade would have been a better fit for California Adventure, as there is a lot of Pixar in this parade and Pixar's home seems to be at California Adventure.
However, I did like the music.

 

[sheetz]

I've only seen the parade on Youtube but I agree with some of your points. I read on another forum that there were supposed to be 2 more floats but that they ran out of time and didn't include them. Hopefully they will add them in at some later point.

I like the first half of the parade but I felt it fizzled at the end. The Frozen float just felt out of place and overshadowed the final Mickey float.

 

[calilou]

I agree that the pacing should have been a little faster for this. And I would have liked to see a few more floats. The floats themselves are awesome and we loved the music. Doesn't match the electrical parade of my childhood though!

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

When the Main Street Electrical Parade first started it was also shorter, and then the bicentennial came, and then they added more floats, deleted floats... so there was always something extra that Disney gave us. With all of the new effects the Disneyland Resort is giving us I think the parade is fine. It starts at 8:50, ends, and about 5 minutes later the fireworks start. I think for the show, crowd show, timing with the other nighttime attractions, the length works. I also expect that as the years go on we will get new floats and Disneyland continues to plus up their show. I like that they start with something and build on it.

 

[FryingPansWhoKnew]

I really don't see how the timing and pacing could be any different truthfully. The timing is so that it can fit with other shows in the packed nighttime schedule now. The pacing seems to be the same as any other parade. They have to pace them that way so they can manage park traffic during the performance. The show kind of needs to happen at DL despite having pixar characters because of the 60th anniversary thing. I don't know. Every negative item that I've read seems to have no discernible remedy I can see.

That being said. My kids were asking by the end of the parade, "When can we do this again?" From our perspective, the parade got its point across just fine.

 

[beachdreamr1229]

I do think the parade is a little short and the pacing is definitely a little off, but overall, it's still pretty amazing. After seeing it in person, I re-watched an old video of the MSEP and the technology and use of lighting is so much better in the new parade. I'm not too picky though. I'm just happy we finally have a nighttime parade again! I can't wait to take my 5-year-old to see it later this month.

 

[Davey Jones II]

Too bad they didn't clone the Dreamlights parade instead!

I'm sure we'll enjoy the parade when we see it in September. As for the tech, of course it's much more advanced than the MSEP. Modern LED lighting instead of Christmas lights. But the MSEP is very long on charm.

 

[FryingPansWhoKnew]

I'm trying to understand the comments around length and pacing. I count more floats (seven large floats, and 4 to 5 small vehicles) than the Pixar Play Parade (depending on how you count the small Toy Story floats), about the same as the Soundsational parade. It also seems a little longer than the Pixar Play Parade (12 minutes) and a little shorter than the Soundsational parade (15 minutes versus 17 minutes).

 

[MouseEXP]

I'm trying to understand the comments around length and pacing. I count more floats (seven large floats, and 4 to 5 small vehicles) than the Pixar Play Parade (depending on how you count the small Toy Story floats), about the same as the Soundsational parade. It also seems a little longer than the Pixar Play Parade (12 minutes) and a little shorter than the Soundsational parade (15 minutes versus 17 minutes).

It just seems short when you see it.
Maybe that is why the Hong Kong version has show stops.

 

[FryingPansWhoKnew]

Ok. It's hard to quantify perception, but it's still valid, though lacking specificity. So, here is my count of parade features:

PTN Parade: 54 dancers, 8 floats, 7 miscellaneous vehicles

Soundsational Parade: 73 dancers, 9 floats, 4 miscellaneous vehicles

Pixar Play Parade: 41 dancers, 6 floats, 15 miscellaneous vehicles

The above numbers are open for debate as I counted Heimlich as 5 distinct miscellaneous vehicles (didn't know how else to count them). I also counted rope holders and pedestrian driven items (such as Lumierre, Genie, and Tigger) as "dancers". I tried to apply the same criteria as evenly as I could. Based on the above numbers, it seems that it is slightly shorter than the soundsational parade and slightly longer than the pixar play parade.

To me though there is little question that the PTN floats overall are better quality than the other parades. I think this at least puts it up to par with the other DL features. If I had to wait 3 hours for a parade, it would definitely be PTN.

 

[sheetz]

The appropriate comparison is with MSEP, which lasts over 20 minutes. And while I haven't counted all the floats it feels like MSEP has more of the small units (mushrooms, turtles, Dopey, Smee, etc.) to help stretch the length.

 

[beachdreamr1229]

I'm trying to understand the comments around length and pacing. I count more floats (seven large floats, and 4 to 5 small vehicles) than the Pixar Play Parade (depending on how you count the small Toy Story floats), about the same as the Soundsational parade. It also seems a little longer than the Pixar Play Parade (12 minutes) and a little shorter than the Soundsational parade (15 minutes versus 17 minutes).

I saw this on the first night it performed, so maybe that's why I felt the pacing was off. Between some float sets there was quite a gap, but then the next two would be one right after the other. I felt there should be more even spacing between the floats as I felt certain sections dragged on longer than others due mostly to the spacing issues.

As for length, I am a product of the final 10 years of MSEP's run. I'm comparing the two, which isn't fair, but it is what it is. MSEP with all its parts, was longer. I think just one or two more floats would have made PtN the perfect length. I would have loved to see Snow White or even some use of Star Wars or Marvel. That's not to say it couldn't be added in the future if the parade is going to last as long as I think it will.

Again, I actually love PtN. I don't think these minor faults really affect my love of it. They were just small things I noticed.

 

[FryingPansWhoKnew]

I saw this on the first night it performed, so maybe that's why I felt the pacing was off. Between some float sets there was quite a gap, but then the next two would be one right after the other. I felt there should be more even spacing between the floats as I felt certain sections dragged on longer than others due mostly to the spacing issues.

I believe this is intentional. There are a number of reasons why the comparison to MSEP might be a little unfair, but one of them is the sheer number of people that now occupy the park at night. While this parade is going on, you have people trying to go from Frontierland to Tomorrowland or vice versa along with a good number of people needing to cross the parade for various other reasons. The large gaps are to facilitate the traffic that is unrelated to the parade.

Actually, traffic is really a huge factor in most of the points that are being brought up here. A lot of what goes on in the park (i.e. being routed through Frontierland from Fantsyland just to leave the park) are just necessary annoyances. DL knows how move a lot of people around in an efficient manner. They can't have two shows ending at the same time. Everything needs to be carefully orchestrated or there is chaos. Because of that, you'll have things like gaps in a parade line or a parade length that is little less than ideal for some people. In rare occasions, I've seen them temporarily close certain attractions just to keep the traffic moving. It's a delicate beast. Even something as seemingly simple as "one or two more floats" has substantial repercussions.

Unless something fundamentally changes about Disneyland as a whole, the days of parades that last over 20 minutes are behind us, but as I mentioned, the modern parades are all very similar in length and content.