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Event Information:
The
New Year's Day Parade is a parade of
10,000 performers through the
streets of the West End of London
which takes place annually on 1
January. The first year the parade
took place was 1987 as the Lord
Mayor of Westminster's Big Parade.
The parade was renamed in 1994 and
for 2000 only it was renamed the
Millennium Parade.
According to organisers, the London
parade is the biggest New Year's Day
street event of its kind. The parade
is used to raise funds for charities
in London and representatives from
each of the 32 London boroughs are
encouraged to take part as a
'borough entry' which are judged as
part of the event. The winning entry
in the 2009 parade was the London
Borough of Merton. The parade is
also used to honour people from each
borough who have been heroic in some
way during the previous year. Every
year BBC London holds a competition
to find two talented young musicians
to travel to the United States and
play with an American high school
marching band, both in America and
then in the London Parade. The
parade dates back to the 1920s to
celebrate the special relationship
between England and the USA.The 2
mile (3.2 km) parade route begins at
Parliament Square in Westminster and
continues along Parliament Street
and Whitehall to Trafalgar Square.
It then continues along Cockspur
Street and Regent Street. The final
section is along Piccadilly and the
parade ends at Green Park. The
parade attracts around a million
spectators and there is ticket-only
seating at the start and end of the
route. The parade route has been
reversed from 2010 with the event
now starting at the Ritz Hotel in
Piccadilly and finishing at
Parliament Square. The revised route
is now:
Leave
the Ritz Hotel, head along
Piccadilly to Piccadilly Circus,
down Regent Street, then along Pall
Mall to Trafalgar Square, along
Whitehall and end up in Parliament
Square
The
decision to reverse the route was
taken to "appease US television
broadcasters" and to "give the
American audience the best views of
the capital's landmarks, such as Big
Ben and Trafalgar Square
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