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Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without the Macy’s Parade – right? So we’re thankful that in this year of madness it is still going ahead.
But don’t start planning your outerwear just yet. Probably better to rock those jammies – because the only way you can watch the 2020 parade is on television.
The 94th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will air on NBC from 9am to noon on Thursday, November 26 – and rather than parading through the streets, as is usual, all activity will be focused on the Herald Square area of Midtown.
“For New Yorkers who typically see it live and in person, this change for them is that they are going to experience it the same way the rest of the country experiences it,” Susan Tercero, executive producer of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, told Asbury Park Press.
“They might have some differences in that we’re going to see some social distancing. We’re going to have masks, things like that. But it’s still going to be the parade they know and love.”
Last year’s parade featured between 8,000 and 10,000 participants, which included performers, staff, and balloon handlers, but for 2020 that workforce has been cut by around 70% to less than 2,000 people. They will create segments of the parade over two days — with some parts being filmed on November 25, and the majority of the action airing live on Thanksgiving itself.
