DC’s 24th Annual Parade of Lights

DC’s 24^th Annual Parade of Lights

                         
 Christmas is coming, so what about joining an event to welcome the festival? Tonight, 5^th December, on 600 Water Street SW tonight, my friends and I joined the Parade of Light event, to appreciate the night of DC and the lights of boats along riverside.  This event is held by the Wharf. DC, a mixed up waterfront destination.   

Too many people under Christmas tree and the machine-made snow

People circled around the fire and heat marshmallows

The wharf was a small harbor that gathered a lot of people! The event itself was fun. The official designed funny festivals activities and beautiful layout on the harbor. With Christmas tress, snow spreading in the air, festival special music, we strongly feel the sense of Christmas. In the middle of the harbor, there was bonfire in a circle so that we can heat the marshmallows, which made us warmer in the cold night. 

Take photo with "Santa Clause"

The servant there distributed chocolate and cookies. The photo booth there enabled us to take photos with “Santa Clause”. Free hot drinks and food were available for participants. The boats parade began at 6 pm,decorated with colorful lights and decorations. They had a DJ there to heat up the spot and introduced every boats coming up. On the river, the lights were fancy and cute, making the nights shining and colorful.

However, this event had a great problem about crowd management. Too many people in this event ruined the experience. On the way to the Wharf, so many cars coming at 6pm made intro terrible traffic jam, and we used about 35 minutes to find a parking lot!  No volunteer to guide the car flow. They should limit the participants by selling tickets or set up entrance limits. However, this event did not control the number of participants. Too many people along the riverside so that I can not see the the boats! People were circle around the fan but only saw heads and heads. For every services, we have to line up for a long time. We lined up for 20 minutes to get food and hard to find a place to seat on. People used the chair to stand higher to watch parade. Too much people but too little food to distribute so that we each only got one or two pieces of marshmallows, but cannot find the stick.

Also, they should set up the signs and arrow to lead the crow，cause I cannot see any signs there. All the participants were confused: where to find food? Where to take photos with Santa? Where to get the marshmallows? Though the event designed a competition for the boats to get the best decorated boat, which was voted by the participants, people cannot find the right place to vote so that I cannot see anyone make a vote. The collecting box soon became a trash bin.

Beautiful lights on the boats

Actually, I really love the idea of this events, and the every boats made a fancy decoration. I have asked several participants there whether they love the boats. The answers are positive, which I can also feel it by the yelling voice when the boats came by. But there are a lot of weakness of this events that should be improve in the future. It can be a more fantastic and profitable event if it can be managed in a better way.