Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, one of the nation’s biggest outdoor holiday events, makes its way with marching bands, Broadway performers, floats and giant balloons. The parade also features heavy security, including officers with assault weapons and portable radiation detectors among the crowds, sharpshooters on rooftops and sand-filled city sanitation trucks poised as imposing barriers to traffic at every cross street.
The 91st annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, one of the nation’s biggest outdoor holiday events streamed through New York City on Thursday with the event’s customary colorful giant balloons, marching bands and floats.
Marching through mid-town Manhattan, this year’s parade included 17 giant character balloons such as Olaf from the Disney movie Frozen and Chase from the cartoon Paw Patrol; 28 legacy balloons, balloonicles, balloonheads and trycaloons; 26 floats; 1,100 cheerleaders and dancers; more than 1,000 clowns; 12 marching bands and 6 performance groups, according to the ABC news.
The parade was expected to draw an estimated 200,000 spectators. Coming just weeks after a deadly truck attack killed eight people in lower Manhattan, the parade also featured a tight layer of security for the spectacle in a year marked by attacks on outdoor festivities.
