WRAL-TV’s Lynda Loveland (left), Elizabeth Gardner and their children wave to the crowd from the WRAL-TV float in the 2015 WRAL Raleigh Christmas Parade.
Come to downtown Raleigh or tune in on WRAL-TV this Saturday to celebrate the holiday season! Don’t miss the pageantry and excitement of the WRAL-TV Raleigh Christmas Parade, presented by Shop Local Raleigh. Live television coverage begins Saturday, November 19th at 10am from downtown Raleigh.
Over 65,000 people will line the street for this spectacular show, in addition to thousands more watching at home. This event annually ranks as one of the largest parades on the East Coast.
Now in its 72nd year, the parade is hosted by WRAL-TV morning news personalities Bill Leslie and Renee Chou, with Brian Shrader serving as street-side reporter.
This year’s parade will feature 115 entries, including marching bands, festive floats, giant balloons, animals, entertainers, specialty vehicles, plus special holiday surprises.
The parade route is 1.4 miles long, starting at the corner of Hillsborough and St. Mary’s Street. The parade travels east on Hillsborough Street, turns south at the Capitol on Salisbury Street, east on Morgan and then makes a final turn down Fayetteville Street.
This is the 43rd consecutive year that the event will be broadcast live by WRAL-TV. The parade will also be streamed live on the web at WRAL.com and in the WRAL News app on your mobile device or on Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire. Viewers across North Carolina can watch the parade on UNC TV’s North Carolina Channel. Replays will be broadcast Christmas Eve at noon on WRAL2 and Christmas Day at noon on WRAL-TV.
Twitter users can follow along behind the scenes of the broadcast as WRAL’s on-air hosts and production team tweet from their vantage points during the set up and throughout live coverage. Viewers and parade watchers are encouraged to join in! Share your photos and parade experiences on Twitter using #RaleighParade, and even tweet with Santa himself during the parade!
Santa won’t stop answering questions after the parade is over. Search “Ask Santa” on WRAL.com, and Santa will answer questions from local children Nov. 19th through Dec. 23.
After the parade, go to WRAL.com and search the word “parade” to view photos from this year and from past parades. You can also watch the entire parade or just the individual groups that you want to see, on-demand, any time, by visiting WRAL.com and searching PARADE.
The WRAL-TV Raleigh Christmas Parade is presented by Shop Local Raleigh and sponsored by UnitedHealthcare and WakeMed.
Thanks to WRAL-TV’s Randy Mews for this capcom story.
