America's Thanksgiving Parade

Overview

America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit is a major annual event featuring marching bands, giant balloons, floats, celebrities, and thousands of participants. Two unique elements set it apart: the Big Head Corps, where marchers wear oversized papier-mâché caricatures of famous people, and the Distinguished Clown Corps, made up of local executives and community leaders in clown costumes. Over 4,500 volunteers help staff and march in the parade. The final float carries an actor portraying Santa Claus, who officially signals the start of the Christmas season; at the end of the televised broadcast, the mayor of Detroit traditionally gives him the "key to the city."

The parade route runs the entire length of Woodward Avenue. As of 2025, it starts at Kirby Street in Midtown Detroit and heads southeast to Congress Street in Downtown, covering 2.3 miles. Units take about 90 minutes to complete the route, with the first stepping off at 8:45 a.m. and the parade typically finishing around noon. Paid ticketholders can sit in temporary grandstands along the route, while the public watches for free from the sidewalk. The entire parade is televised locally and livestreamed by WDIV from a broadcast booth near the southern end in downtown Detroit; a national syndicated broadcast airs from 10 to 11 a.m. Radio coverage is provided by WJR and WOMC.

In 2025, the parade featured 29 floats, 21 of which were returning from previous years. Most floats are commissioned by corporate sponsors or community groups, and all are hand-built at the Parade Company's studio on Detroit's east side. Floats taller than 16 feet are designed to retract mechanically to clear the Detroit People Mover track at Grand Circus Park. As part of Ford Motor Company's sponsorship, every float is pulled by a Ford pickup truck, except for the General Motors float, which uses a GMC Sierra.

Woodward Avenue closes to traffic the Wednesday before Thanksgiving for setup. Traffic signals are removed from 20 intersections along the route to prevent collisions with the floats. Because of the closure, the QLINE does not run on Thanksgiving or the preceding Wednesday, and DDOT and SMART bus routes on Woodward are detoured during the parade and setup. Immediately after the parade ends, crews reinstall the signals and sweep the street, allowing Woodward to reopen by 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

History

The parade began as an idea from Charles Wendel, the display director at Hudson's department store, in the 1920s. He was inspired by the success of the Eaton's Santa Claus Parade in Toronto. The first parade took place in 1924, featuring ten floats, seven marching bands, and four marchers in large papier-mâché heads, a style Wendel had seen during a trip to Europe. The next year, the event expanded to include 26 horse-drawn floats, 300 marching employees from Hudson's, and a live elephant.

By 1939, the number of marchers had grown to over 1,000. After the 1942 parade, many float materials were recycled to support the American war effort in World War II. Material shortages led to the parade's cancellation in 1943 and 1944. Hudson's brought it back in 1945 and continued as sponsor until 1979, when rising costs became too much.

The store then handed the parade to the Detroit Renaissance Foundation, which produced it for four years. In 1983, control passed to the newly formed Michigan Thanksgiving Parade Foundation. In 2013, Art Van Furniture bought the naming rights; its founder, Art Van Elslander, had long been a financial supporter. The 2020 parade was held without crowds due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

That same year, following Art Van's bankruptcy, Gardner-White Furniture acquired the naming rights. The papier-mâché heads, still a feature of the parade, are made in Viareggio, Italy. The parade was first broadcast on radio station WWJ in 1931. It moved to television in 1959 on local stations WWJ-TV and WXYZ-TV.

The WXYZ broadcast was hosted by ventriloquist Shari Lewis and her sock puppet Lamb Chop, and aired nationally on ABC. In 1960, CBS began airing parts of the parade, continuing for the next 25 years. After a short pause in the mid-1980s, CBS returned to cover the parade through 2002 as part of its All-American Thanksgiving Day Parade compilation show. Other notable commentators over the years included John Amos, Ned Beatty, Kathy Garver, Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo), Linda Lavin, Esther Rolle, and Andrew Stevens.

Local coverage, which had been on WWJ (later WDIV) for more than two decades, moved to WXYZ for several years in the 1980s before returning to NBC-affiliate WDIV in the mid-1990s.

The Parade Company

The nonprofit Michigan Thanksgiving Parade Foundation, established in 1983, handles the management, organization, and fundraising for the parade. Its operating division, The Parade Company, was created in 1990 to run the event. Funding comes mainly from corporate sponsors and fundraisers. The name "America's Thanksgiving Parade" is a trademark of the foundation. Beyond this parade, The Parade Company also produces the Ford Fireworks for the Windsor-Detroit International Freedom Festival. Additionally, it has organized victory parades for the Detroit Red Wings' Stanley Cup wins in 1997, 1998, 2002, and 2008, as well as for the Michigan Wolverines' 1998 Rose Bowl victory.