WDW Daily News

“Paint the Night” parade

• Created by Walt Disney Parks & Resorts Creative Entertainment, “Paint the Night” is a state-of-the-art, vibrant wonder that immerses guests in the magical, luminescent worlds of many classic Disney and Disney-Pixar stories.
• The parade tells eight different stories, each story represented by multiple floats, props and performers.
• The creation of “Paint the Night” parade units was a three-year process for the design and technical teams.
• “Paint the Night” is the first-ever parade lit almost entirely by LED lights. Only very minimal incandescent lighting sources are used: at the tip of Tinker Bell’s wand and in Rapunzel’s flickering lanterns.
• Each costume has its own sophisticated system of lighting controls. Some lights are sewn into the costume fabric and some are sculpted pieces worn by the performers.

By the Numbers

• Including the video screens, the parade contains more than 1.5 million sources of light.
• The 500 strobes used in the parade are a custom lighting product developed by Disney.
• “Paint the Night” requires more than 200 “universes of control” to operate everything from the video presentations on the floats to the lights on individual costumes.

Tinker Bell

• The Tinker Bell float is 40 feet long, with 44 universes of control and, including video screens, more than 850,000 points of light.
• Power and control for Tinker Bell’s lighted costume come from the float itself. Tinker Bell’s shoe poufs are lit by fiber optics.
• The Tinker Bell float design includes a tribute to the “drum unit” that led the classic “Main Street Electrical Parade” from 1972 to 1996 in Disneyland. Tinker Bell’s wand is handmade and is capped by a rosette from the original 1972 Main Street Electrical Parade.

 “Monsters, Inc.”

• The float is 11 feet wide, 21 feet long, and has nearly 17,000 points of light.
• The five animated doors are just over 9 feet tall and contain 40 individual LED video panels. Custom automation programming allows the doors to act as individuals or as a group.
• Door video was created in collaboration with Pixar Animation Studios.

 “Cars”

• The unit features everyone’s favorite Piston Cup Champion, Lighting McQueen, along with Mack and DJ.
• Mack is 54 feet long (the longest vehicle in the parade), and has 28 moving lights.
• Mack’s design features a 3D display that creates exceptional depth of image. The display contains 26,730 individual orbs.
• Almost 2,000 feet of LED ‘neon’ is used in this unit.

“The Little Mermaid”

• Triton stands over 12 feet tall.
• The float is 32 feet long, 11 feet wide and 18 feet tall.
• There are nine fish, eight flowers and more than 250 blades of grass.
• Each of the 80 ‘sea grass bubbles’ was custom cast and painted and can be individually programmed.

Disney Princesses

• Belle’s video screen contains more than 500,000 pixels and presents scenes from “Beauty and the Beast” as well as floral graphic imagery and starry night skies.
• In addition to color changing programmable ribbons, Belle’s dress has 40 custom-designed jewels and the most decorative lighting caps of any float.
• The float is 26 feet long and the rose is 17 feet tall.

“Toy Story”

• Slinky Dog scampers along with Woody and Buzz holding on for the ride.
• The float is 32 feet long, and Slinky’s ears are 18 feet tall and 11 feet across.
• The 10 spinning disks rotate at 120 RPM and are programmed with custom video content.

“Frozen” 

• The Frozen float is almost 35 feet long and 30 feet tall.
• The central chandelier is made up of 72 individual “ice shards,” each lit by its own LED.
• There are 56 over-scale scenic snowflakes and 11 individual water jet cut swirls on the float.
• Eight snow-covered trees surround Olaf, enhanced with 3,000 tear drop crystals.
• There are six unique etched window art panels on the float. Three depict happy memories of Anna and Elsa in childhood. The other three feature Kristoff, the Trolls and Sven.

Mickey Mouse & Friends Finale

• The Mickey Mouse float is 31 feet long, has 40 universes of control and more than 10,000 points of light.
• Mickey ‘conducts’ the finale of the parade from 12 feet above the street.
• Joining Mickey Mouse, on a series of smaller whirling parade vehicles are Goofy, Donald Duck and Minnie Mouse. Each whirling vehicle has 352 points of light custom designed for the character on board.
• The spiraling kinetic sculpture behind Mickey on his float is 14 feet tall, 7 feet wide, contains 6,944 individually programmable LED pixels with 124 ‘paddles’ on 31 armatures.