Well, Atlanta, you made it happen again. Each year we think the Lantern Parade can’t get any more magical, and every year you prove us wrong with your beautiful homemade creations and your Atlanta BeltLine pride.
This year, the parade topped them all with an estimated 60,000 attendees. No, that’s not a typo – and that makes our humble parade the largest in North America! Thank you, Atlanta, for coming out and showing your Atlanta BeltLine love, thank you to Chantelle Rytter and the Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons for hosting this amazing event, and thank you to Atlanta Medical Center for being our presenting sponsor of the parade this year.
With a parade this size, we needed lots of bands to keep the music going along the Eastside Trail! The five bands featured in the 2015 parade were:
- The Seed & Feed Marching Abominables
- Wasted Potential Brass Band
- Mausiki Scales and the Common Ground Collective
- The Freedom Marching Band
- The Black Sheep Ensemble
Our first ever Old Fourth Ward Fall Festival kicked off the weekend with music, games, food trucks, and more at the Historic Fourth Ward Skatepark. The event raised funds for Art on the Atlanta BeltLine and featured lantern-making workshops with local artists.
Speaking of lantern workshops, nearly every one of Chantelle Rytter’s workshops at Ponce City Market sold out this year, helping folks make lanterns of all shapes and sizes to light the parade.
We have dozens of photos to share in our Lantern Parade photo gallery already, and tons more photos, videos, and drone footage to come, so keep checking back! We couldn’t be more excited about all of the love you have shown the Atlanta BeltLine and we hope you’ll continue to support Art on the Atlanta BeltLine by coming out to the events and sharing your photos with the hashtag #beltlineart.
This weekend, Art on the Atlanta BeltLine will be back with performances at the Reynoldstown Stage and in Gordon White Park. See the whole lineup at art.beltline.org/schedule.
I really enjoyed the Latern Parade this year and I plan to come back next year, God willing. One thing I would suggest are adding more bands or music. There’s a lot of space between the music and we all know music makes everything more festive and fun. So I wouldn’t change anything except adding three or four more bands….please! And make the music inclusive to all people who enjoy the Beltline and city of Atlanta.