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Event Information:
The
Comerica Bank New Year's Parade
(also known as the Cotton Bowl
Parade) is an annual New Year's Day
parade held in downtown Dallas,
Texas. The parade is sponsored by
Comerica Bank, presented by the J.
Curtis Sanford Parade Committee, and
benefits the Field and Mary Scovell
Scholarship Foundation. It was
revived in 2007 and is held each
year for the AT&T Cotton Bowl
Classic. An estimated 100,000 people
attend the parade each year. The
parade route is 1.5 miles (2.4 km)
long, starts in the Dallas Arts
District and ends at the American
Airlines Center, by Victory Park. It
features about 80 different entries,
including about 20 floats and
various marching bands, balloons,
and other such performances. The
parade is followed by pep rallies in
the park for each team competing in
the Cotton Bowl Classic. Although
the game is now held in Cowboy
Stadium at Arlington, Texas, the
parade is still held in Dallas. The
Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau
says that the New Year's Day parade
is important to the local economy
because it increases the amount of
people shopping, dining, and staying
in hotels during the end of the
holiday season.
The
parade was originally televised on
CBS until 1992, when the network
decided to stop, and as a result,
the event was canceled. The parade
was then revived in 2007, when
Comerica, which had recently moved
its headquarters from Detroit to
Dallas, announced its title
sponsorship of the event. Originally
held on New Year's Eve, the parade
started with approximately 60
different entries, but has since
expanded. All of the parades have
been organized by the J. Curtis
Sanford Parade Committee, a
non-profit organization named for J.
Curtis Sanford, who founded the
Cotton Bowl Classic in 1937 with his
own money. In 2008, the "Comerica
Bank Vote for the Float" was
announced. The program allows
spectators and television viewers to
vote for floats designed by middle
school students from the Dallas
Independent School District in
Dallas County. Former Dallas Cowboys
running back Emmett Smith was picked
to be the event's first Grand
Marshal in 2007. For the 2010
parade, the Eli Young Band was
chosen to be the parade's Grand
Marshal. The 2009 Grand Marshal was
Betty Sanford, the widow of J.
Curtis Sanford. She was chosen
because it was the last year the
Cotton Bowl Classic would be held in
Dallas.
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