Here are some photos of
2009's Candlelight Processional. If you scroll down to the one that says "Entire Stage" you'll see at the very bottom of the picture are heads of people sitting in the hundreds of chairs that are set up facing the Train Station Platform. There are trumpeters on the Train Platform....choirs up the stairs and on the ground below. The speaker (2009 was John Voight, 2010 is reported to be Tom Skerritt) stands at a podium to do his reading.
Sitting in a chair requires an invite......so the rest of us will have to stand around the train station area and up Main Street. Get there early as it WILL be crowded, more crowded than any parade I've ever seen, lol. Best place to be would probably be as close to the train station area as possible....maybe over by City Hall, Emporium or the Fire Station (some of that area where the parade comes out/goes in will be roped off for the choir to process in). The ideal would be to be able to see the podium so you can see the speaker but that may require a front row standing point....and honestly, all he does is stand there and read, maybe an occasional gesture of the hands. Really, they are broadcast over the speakers so you can hear them even if you can't see them....to me seeing the beautiful choir with their candles is much more important and they're thankfully high enough up that it's definitely easier to get a good standing place so long as you're not too far down Main Street.
How early....I'd say 2 hours would be a good bet for the closest standing place.....if you don't want to wait that long and are ok with hearing and not seeing, you just need to be on the Main Street side of the hub really.
If by chance you have any plans to visit WDW in December, you might want to wait until that trip to experience Candlelight Processional.....because WDW does CP for several weeks....with about a dozen different speakers, two shows a night......but best of all you can get a CP/Dinner package that guarantees you a seat where you can see everything. And...a few lucky folks that stand in the "standby" line may also get a seat without having to buy the dinner. We have enjoyed the CP at WDW for several years and find it a much more enjoyable experience than the jockeying around of standing and waiting to half see it at
Disneyland. Just my opinion of course, and obviously not very helpful if you have no future plans to do WDW at the holidays, but just in case you do.....wait for WDW, lol.
