Fiesta Flambeau Parade

Fiesta Fiesta! The night parade is so much fun! Like another reviewer said, I’m really surprised that other’s haven’t reviewed it yet. I’ve been going to the flambeau parade for the past few years and have always had a good time. The parade is a mix of marching bands, floats and fiesta royalty. I’ve sat in both the bleachers and chair seats, and I feel like both have a good view. (We usually get seats at Jones and 10^th near Maverick Park). You can bring your own food/​drinks but there are several booths selling tacos, pizza, turkey legs, funnel cakes (pretty much anything and everything). Be prepared for the massive crowds and traffic downtown. I usually park at SAMA and it’s $ 20 but it’s conveniently located and it’s nice to know that someone is watching your car for you. Also, be prepared to use a porta-​potty if you have to use the restroom.

This was my first Fiesta parade, we’ve lived in SA for 3 years and the scheduling of this one fit our schedule, we have friends who live along the parade route, and we were able to manage sweet parking with a short walk.
Parking at the SAMA was suggested by a fellow Unilocaler, only $ 20 and it’s a 5 – 10 min walk to Broadway… Easy. We left at 10pm and there was some traffic getting back on 35 but it wasn’t bad, cops directed all traffic.
The parade: it was long! We couldn’t last for the entire thing but we also got down there around 2:30 which made for a very long day in general, plus my husband and I had to work that morning (so incredibly tired by the time the parade started lol!). That’s ok; beer, food, AC, private bathrooms, and friends made it worth it. Yes, we got to enjoy the parade from a bar and I have no complaints with that. We don’t do crowds so I don’t think we’d buy regular tix only because of the amount of people we’d be around however the reserved seating in front of the bar seemed very well organized and the «audience» was behaving nicely ;-)
The theme: I was a little disappointed that the theme wasn’t more apparent in the floats (also why weren’t there more floats?), band music, and costumes in general of the participating organizations. We saw about 10 Boy Scout troops (why not group them together and they each carry their own banner?). Spacing between groups lagged really bad at points. The «royalty» seemed to be the only ones with decorated floats so maybe that’s how these parades work but more color and variation of each group that passed would have been welcomed. If there’s going to be a theme I expect it to be seen in every group and hear bands playing TV show theme songs; I think the bands could have even branched out and done movie songs too… I realize every band can’t play the exact same music, there needs to be some variation. I wasn’t expecting to hear pop music though.
The runners that started the parade were by far the best, as strange as that may sound! They were high-​fiving people, their costumes were great (and matched the theme!) — Lucy and Ricky, The Simpsons, The Flintstones, Pac Man; there were many costumes and I loved that!
The light displays were neat especially on the bands — I loved seeing how the kids decorated their instruments & uniforms. I wish more groups had showed that kind of effort! The light parade is a fun concept compared to the other day time parades, I would go back again. We’d like to try a river parade but have heard horror stories… One year we’ll brave it, one year.

How could it be that no one has reviewed the Flambeau Parade?!
Most of my memories of this parade are from when I was a young one. My parents would bring myself and my siblings. We would sit with my cousins and wear glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces. Fast forward a few years later and you will still see plenty of little kids running around with noise makers, cascarones (confetti filled egg), and glow in the dark apparatus.
Vendors line the parade route with all drink of carnival food and drink. This year I saw Dominos’ pizza boys with personal sized pepperoni pizzas.
If you want bleacher seats, you’ll need to buy from the Fiesta store on Broadway. This year, the official Fiesta twitter posted pics of people standing in line on ticket sale day. If memory serves correctly, the bleacher seat tickets sold out in two or three days. If you don’t want bleacher seats, you will have to decide on where along the parade route you would like to sit (ex. on Broadway and Brooklyn) and find out who is selling tickets for that section. Usually, it’ll be a church or boy scout troop.
As for the parade itself, there will be Fiesta royalty, high school marching bands (sometimes you’ll see an out of state school), university marching bands, cheerleaders, and dance studios. This year, the San Antonio Talons and Houston Texans made an appearance.
My tip for avoiding heavy traffic on the way out: leave about 15 min before the parade ends.