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Discover the heartbeat of Juneau's cultural and community landscape with 'Capital Chat.' This series explores the vibrant world of the community, arts, and dynamic cultural and social events happening in Alaska's Capital City. Tune in to 'Capital Chat' for your essential guide to the pulse of our community, where every story is an adventure and every voice matters.
Joining me to talk about the fourth of July parade coming up this Saturday, Alicia and Kai, the staging director for the parade. Alicia, hello.
Speaker 2:Good morning.
Speaker 1:Good morning, Kai. Good to see you.
Speaker 3:Good morning.
Speaker 1:What can you tell us about the plans? What folks can expect to experience?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's getting close. If you haven't submitted your entry yet, please just email it to JunoParade@Gmail.com, and get that over to us ASAP. We do have a really, really recent sponsor I wanted to mention, Gary's Fine Jewelry. He's our only downtown gold sponsor, and they're a local jewelry store that's open year round. And so we're super grateful for an additional sponsorship for the parade because we can always use the funds since we're entirely sponsorship funded.
Speaker 1:And and, Kai, the work that goes into staging this parade so actually knowing that, you're gonna participate as a business is so important because I I remember in in years past, it it's a it's a big project, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah. It is. It starts about a week out. We have to start looking at how many entries we have and how many we think we're gonna have so we can fit them all on the parking lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No kidding.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I spent a lot of time going down to the parking lot and measuring all around the the perimeter of it just in case we have more than usual.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So And we and we should. It's the two hundred and fiftieth. This should be a big celebration this year.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That that that would be fun.
Speaker 1:So, Alicia, the experience and this is your last, last round of running the parade after how many years?
Speaker 2:I've been doing it since 2017, I believe.
Speaker 1:Wow. Wow. Well, thank you for being able to put this on every year for this community. That's a a massive, massive project. What are folks going to experience this year?
Speaker 4:There's gonna be a lot of
Speaker 2:high energy fun. We have, our normal marching bands. We've got the volunteer marching band, and we have the Juno bagpipes. We also have Adi Adi Han. So they always bring a lot of high energy in their drums and their their excitement.
Speaker 2:That's always awesome. We actually have a a group of people that are calling themselves the two hundred and fiftieth celebration section of the parade.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice.
Speaker 2:And they, they kind of formed on their own, and they we have, like, enthusiastic people requesting to join that section. So staging character Kai here is gonna be kept on his toes with all the requests for sure of, like, hey.
Speaker 4:Can I be with these people? Can I be with these people? Because it's a
Speaker 2:lot of work, like, situating who can go where and how to, like, separate the music from the quieter groups. And Yeah. Yep. It's gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Oh, we're gonna be broadcasting the play by play of the parade, this year as as usual, and it starts at eleven. Folks should start arriving when, and, let's give everybody the route if they haven't experienced this before.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The route's gonna be the same this year. We're gonna start at 8th And Eagan, right there where the big Red Cycle Alaska building is. We're gonna be coming out of that parking lot and going across the street against traffic. So they're gonna close the road at 10:30.
Speaker 2:I understand. So definitely get a spot before then if you are watching the parade and, get down way before then because there's gonna be I mean, parking downtown is always terrible. So, I mean, I wish you luck, honestly. But, if you're in the parade, there are times on the entry form that was submitted. And we want our big rigs and floats to get there starting at eight.
Speaker 2:And if they could get there as soon as possible, so Kai could get them lined up because he's gotta segment them into the different parking areas, and then we fit the smaller vehicles in. And then there's the judging. We have our civil air patrol cadets that are gonna be judging again this year. The parade's gonna start at 8th And Eagan, and it's gonna go down against traffic. It's gonna turn left on Main Street, go up to Front Street at and turn right, and then go all the way down to the Red Dog Intersection where it goes against traffic again coming back to 8th And Eagan.
Speaker 2:So it's pretty long, and it's pretty tiring. But we we hope that people will keep up the energy this year and are able to keep the spacing, as requested by the police and the insurance of Juno. But, yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be a blast. There's gonna be lots of candy, and there's gonna be lots of music and lots of celebrating the two hundred and fiftieth Independence Day of this amazing country.
Speaker 4:Fantastic. Thanks for the great work,
Speaker 1:doing this parade year after year after year, and what a way to celebrate and go out in your final year.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. I'm I'm loving it. And we appreciate you guys announcing everything. I know that you have the information of each of the floats, and you talk about everybody as they submit their little brag section in the entry form. And we just love that everybody gets a little spotlight on the day from you guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Dano and Sharon will be doing the play
Speaker 4:by play of the parade. Can't wait. And, Kai, you've got
Speaker 1:your work cut out for you. We'll see you out there in the, planning stages, and looking forward to this year's parade.