The 136th Annual Rose Parade is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. PST on New Year’s Day along 5.5 miles of Pasadena streets, with hundreds of thousands of people expected to attend.
Networks including ABC, NBC, KTLA and Univision will broadcast the parade, as well as live streaming on platforms including YouTube, Fubo and Pluto TV.
Celebrating the theme of this year’s parade, “The Best Day Ever,” dozens of floats, marching bands and equestrian groups will roll down Colorado Avenue in the heart of Old Town Pasadena. The parade will be followed by the Rose Bowl game between the Oregon Ducks and Ohio State Buckeyes
The march was scheduled to begin hours after a pickup truck driver plowed through a crowd in New Orleans’ French Quarter, killing at least 10 people and injuring at least 30 others in what was suspected to be a terrorist attack.
A man drove into a crowd around 3:15 a.m. Wednesday along Bourbon Street, which was packed with New Year’s Eve revelers and tourists in town watching the Sugar Bowl college football game. New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said the driver “was hell-bent on causing carnage and the damage he caused.”
Pasadena city spokesperson Lisa Derderian told The Times earlier Wednesday that the Rose Parade route was lined with “very strong vehicle barriers” and that the city had more than 1,000 law enforcement officers. .
“This is a premier federal event and has been for many years, so we have federal, state, county and city resources that have been in Pasadena for a few days and will remain in Pasadena through tonight of parades and games,” Derderian said.
“We want to reassure the public that we are taking every precaution,” she added. “We’re confident that we’ll be ready for this parade and this game, but with that in mind, we also empathize with what Louisiana is going through.”
During last year’s Rose Parade, a woman crashed her vehicle into a barricade along Colorado Boulevard, Derderian said.
“She could easily have been injured or killed,” Derderian said. “She had some medical history in the past and was told not to cross the line, but she didn’t listen, revved the engine and kept driving. The barrier stopped her.
The grand marshal of this year’s Rose Parade is Billie Jean King, a tennis icon and gender equality activist who has won 20 Wimbledon titles and 39 Grand Slam titles. and attracted 90 million viewers around the world to watch the 1973 televised “Battle of the Sexes” contest.
When she was announced as the parade’s grand marshal in October, Kim, a Long Beach native, said it was “like a dream come true.”
“As a kid, the annual Rose Parade was a big event in our family,” said King, 81. … We look forward to it every year.
The 2021 Rose Parade has been canceled for the first time since World War II due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, attendance was down, but in the years since, attendance has been increasing.
Tournament of Roses spokesperson Candy Carlson said in a statement to The Times that about 750,000 people lined up along the route in 2024, compared with about 700,000 in 2022, indicating the size of the crowds ” Strong return to pre-pandemic levels.
“The continued growth in attendance highlights the Rose Parade’s enduring appeal and the joy it brings to our community and visitors from around the world,” she said. “We are confident that this year’s parade will continue to attract energetic and engaged audiences.”
The Rose Bowl game, now the College Football Playoff quarterfinals, will be televised nationally on ESPN, with pregame festivities beginning at 1 p.m. PST and kickoff set for 2 p.m.
