Slower Pace For Parade Made-For-TV Gaps Planned; Huge Balloons To Make Debut

The 200 or so marching bands and drill teams in Saturday night’s Lilac Festival Armed Forces Torchlight Parade won’t strut their stuff until John Cocks says so.

Cocks is the parade’s official starter. At exactly 7:45 p.m., he’ll send the first fire truck and color guard down Washington Street.

For the next two hours, Cocks will keep close tabs on how the entire parade is moving and decide when each unit will hit the street.

The goal, says the volunteer parade official, “is to keep the parade at a marching pace, with no big gaps along the way.”

The job is trickier this year, because KHQ-TV wants Cocks to hold back the parade at several points so it can air commercials during its live broadcast, but not miss much of the action.

Another challenge is the arrival this year of Underdog and Andy Panda, two 40-foot “Macy Parade-type” balloons that need special handling to make it through the parade in one piece.

Inflated with helium and controlled by seven-man teams with tethers, the balloons must be dragged sideways under the 14-foot skywalks along the route.

“We’ve never had to do this before, so what effect they’ll have remains to be seen,” said Bill McKinney, the festival’s media coordinator.

This marks the third year that Cocks tries to keep the pace brisk enough so that the final unit crosses the finish line around 10:45 p.m.

But he’s never had to deal with a TV station request to hold up the parade just enough so home viewers don’t miss the main floats, parade royalty and other high points of the evening.

In years past, KHQ just cut away from the parade, hoping viewers didn’t care what they missed.

The last few years, complaints mounted from viewers ticked off because they hadn’t seen their kids’ marching band on TV.

“One year we even missed the parade grand marshal during a break,” said KHQ’s General Manager Lon Lee.

Cocks will work next to a KHQ employee with a headset, who’s in touch with the station’s camera crew a block away.

KHQ will tell Cocks when it is about to cut to a 60- or 90-second commercial. He’ll then try to hold up the next unit for 30 to 45 seconds.

That will leave viewers missing the next unit coming past the camera, but not two or three floats as they would if Cocks did nothing.

Festival officials had to decide which units won’t be televised during those 10 or so commercial breaks.

“I don’t want to say which units we’ve looked at this way,” said McKinney. “But it’s going to be units that will not feel the same impact of not being seen” on TV, McKinney explained.

About 100,000 people usually watch the telecast, about the same number as those lining the 24-block parade route.

Cocks insisted the television broadcast won’t thwart the goal of a smooth, well-ordered parade.

He’ll stay in touch through twoway radio with dozens of spotters and volunteers along the route. They’ll report on how the gaps are affecting the parade.

“I’ll review it on the spot. I’ve informed KHQ that if this causes problems, we’ll stop holding up the units, since we want as natural a flow as possible,” Cocks said.

Weather is expected to be partly sunny and in the low 60s at parade time.

Other events leading up to the parade include the Royalty Lunch today at noon at the Ridpath Hotel and the festival’s free Giant Banana Split Party at 1 p.m. Saturday at Riverfront Park’s Clock Tower.