Disney has announced that two nighttime spectaculars that have been running daily since April will be ending their limited run on September 1st. Disneyland Forever and Main Street Electrical Parade, the park’s current firework show and parade, will depart for now. In this post, we’ll share the details before jumping into some commentary on the news.

Main Street Electrical Parade and Disneyland Forever returned on April 22nd along with World of Color (which will continue) at California Adventure. While it was thought to be a limited run, there wasn’t much indication on how long that run would last. The parade came back to celebrate it’s 50th anniversary and showcased a new finale float that we found to be somewhat underwhelming. Even thinking that, there’s no denying that the parade brings a boost of energy to Disneyland’s streets and helps increase the capacity of the park.

The same could be said for Disneyland Forever, which is an excellent firework show that debuted for the resort’s 60th anniversary in 2015 and returns from time to time since then. It’s thought to be a pretty expensive fireworks show to operate and Disneyland rotates through the shows liberally. I would guess that we haven’t seen the last of it but it might be gone for the next year or two.

Why are these shows ending? Pointing to the change of season and a less busy time of year is the obvious reason, especially for the fireworks. Halloween Screams, Disneyland’s Halloween nighttime spectacular, ran for much of September and October last year and that will probably be the case this year. It debuting before Labor Day seems like an odd choice but we’ll see how the times match up in the next few months.

Main Street Electrical Parade ending is a little more curious. I’m not going to be overly kind to the parade, it should have been retired 20+ years ago and it making ‘one last run’ is a joke among Disney regulars. I can’t say that it looks especially good or is all that intriguing to me at this point. But the parks need parades! Disneyland historically doesn’t run a Halloween parade and there’s no excuse for the park not to have a daytime or nighttime parade.

Now, there’s plenty of time to announce the return of a different parade. I’ll be clamoring for Magic Happens to come back until I’m as dead as Main Street Electrical Parade should be. Magic Happens debuted a few weeks before the parks shut down due to COVID (you know, 173 years ago) and hasn’t been heard from since. It is the obvious choice of parades to come back to Disneyland’s streets.

But, I’m sadly feeling pretty cynical about the chances of it coming on September 2nd. If I had to bet, I think Disneyland will try to skate by without a parade until the Christmas festivities start in November. I really hope I’m wrong and that this isn’t a cost cutting move. Please prove me wrong, Disney! I’m fine with Main Street Electrical Parade ending it’s run, even if it will somehow outlive us all, but there needs to be a parade.

As for the fireworks, I think we’ll see Halloween Screams followed by Believe in Holiday Magic with a little bit of Mickey’s Mix Magic thrown in there to fill the gaps. That covers 2022. The intrigue will pick up entering the next year. The company will be celebrating it’s 100th anniversary in February of 2023 and I would imagine there will be some additions to the park for that. A Disneyland fireworks show has been rumored and does make a lot of sense. I’d love to see a new show come or they could just run with Remember… Dreams Come True and I’d be perfectly happy!

I think we’ll hear more in a few short months at September’s D23 Expo. That should include plans for Disneyland’s fireworks AND parades in the near future but we’ll see if we get that lucky. For now, it’s time to soak in one last run with Main Street Electrical Parade and Disneyland Forever. They’ll be gone for… well, probably not that long but it might be forever!

What do you think about Main Street Electrical Parade and Disneyland Forever ending their run? Let us know your thoughts, along with any questions, in the comments below! Planning a trip to Disneyland? Check out our Planning Guide here. If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. All of those links are on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!