What goes on behind-the-scenes at Macy’s before its Thanksgiving Day Parade can step off

Jim Hill

9 years ago

So where are you right now when it comes to your
Thanksgiving to-do list? You know, that running tab of things that you need to
get done between now and tomorrow afternoon?

Well, as busy as you may be, I'm betting that your
Thanksgiving to-do list looks like a Post-it note compared to all of the tasks
that the talented folks who work for Macy's Parade & Entertainment Group
have to accomplish before 12 noon ET on Thursday. November 25th arrives.

You see, that's when NBC's 3 hour-long broadcast of the 89th
annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade goes off the air. And given that over 50
million people tune in annually to watch this live show (not to mention the 3.5
million New Yorkers & tourists who line up along its 2.65 mile-long parade
route so that they can then watch this seasonal spectacle in person), Macy's
does everything that it can in advance to ensure that this holiday favorite
goes off without a hitch.

"We actually work year-round on Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade. In fact, more than year-round. We've already had a few planning
meetings for the 90th edition of Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. Which won't step
off 'til late November of 2016," said Orlando Veras, spokesman for Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade. "But it's just been over the past week or so that
we've really gone into overdrive. Basically working 'round-the-clock on this
year's parade."

This all started early this month, when the four new giant
balloons debuting in the Parade this year where test flown and continued
towards the end of last week when the media — along with some local school
children — were invited to the Macy's Parade Studio 72,000 square-foot
facility in Moonachie, NJ to view the six new floats that will be making their
debut in this year's parade. These include the Cranberry Cooperative (sponsored
by Ocean Spray), Discover Adventure! (sponsored by Build-A-Bear), and the
Snoopy's Doghouse float (which is sponsored by Peanuts Worldwide and celebrates
the 50th anniversary of "A Charlie Brown Christmas.")

And once these new floats were showcased for the press,
Macy's Parade Studio employees then carefully took them down and packed them
away. For while some of the floats that the Parade Studio creates can stand
three stories tall and spread across several lanes of traffic when assembled,
they all must still be able to collapse down to 12 & 1/2 feet-tall and 8
feet-wide. Otherwise these floats
wouldn't be able to travel through the Lincoln Tunnel from the studio in New
Jersey to the parade's starting line up on the West
Side of Central Park.

Meanwhile, at the end point for Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade (i.e., the Herald Square store at 34th Street and Seventh Avenue),
Macy's employees spent much of last Friday getting that store's animated
windows ready for their annual unveiling. This year's windows recreate six
scenes from the "Charlie Brown Christmas" holiday special. And to
make sure that the unveiling made as big a splash as possible, a 50-member
children's choral group, The Highbridge Voices Choir was accompanied by the
Juilliard Jazz Ensemble as these Peanuts-themed windows were revealed to the
world.

"And — of course — out ahead of that, the team from Macy's Parade Studio had to dress the exterior of our Herald Square Store. Put all of these lovely balloons & signage & Christmas trees on top of our marquees that the people at home would then be able to see in the background when they tuned in to watch NBC's broadcast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade," Veras said.

And speaking of that live show, one of the highlights of
this annual broadcast is the hour prior to the parade's actual arrival in Herald
Square. Which is when the casts from several
Broadway musicals perform selected numbers from these shows right in the middle
of 34th Street.

"And to make sure that the technicians from NBC know
how to properly shoot these musical numbers for that live broadcast … Well,
that's why we work with the City of New York
to have 34th Street blocked
off on Monday & Tuesday night. So that the performers can then rehearse
right there in front of the store," Orlando
stated.

Meanwhile, to make sure that all of the Macy's employees who
march in this parade annually are properly attired, Costume Operations moves
all 5000 costumes from the Parade Studio in New Jersey
to the New Yorker Hotel. And while that's going on, back in Moonachie, all of
the parade floats are first placed in the proper order and then paired with the
RAM trucks that will tow them through the streets of Manhattan.

"At this point, I should probably give a shout-out to
Susan Tercero, who heads up our
Operations team for the parade. Susan and her group are the ones who
handle all of the logistics. They work with the various city agencies to make
sure that the streets are closed for rehearsals. Or that all of the necessary
passageways are cleared so that that convoy of
floats and balloons can safely travel through the streets of Manhattan,
among other duties," Veras revealed.

Mind you, because Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an
annual event, there are certain aspects of this seasonal spectacular that are
consistent from year-to-year. But at the same time, because New
York City is such a dynamic place, the Macy's Parade
team has had to learn to roll with the punches.

"Given all of the construction that's going on in the
City these days, we often find ourselves in situations where streets that we
once used for staging are now no longer available to us. So we then have to
find new ways to do what we previously did," Orlando
laughed. "This is why — the Saturday before the Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade — we have this 3 hour-long logistics meeting. Where each of the core
teams come together at Macy's corporate offices and we then go over every
detail, go through every aspect for the parade in order to determine to what's
new for this year, what's different from years previous and what we can then do
to address that challenge."

And then — of course — there are those unexpected
surprises. Like when the producers of the TODAY show will suddenly ask if it's
possible to bring one of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloons over to Rockefeller
Plaza so that it can then be
inflated to help promote this year's live broadcast.

"That's all part of what makes working on this parade
every year such a thrill. That you can suddenly get a phone call like that and
then try to figure out a way to actually make it happen. Bring a balloon over
to the TODAY Show, inflate it and then take that balloon prepped again for
parade so that it'll be ready to be inflated on Wednesday afternoon," Orlando
concluded.

Speaking of which … If you'd like to watch as the 17 character
balloons which will be featured in the 89th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade are being inflated, then you need
to add a trip to NYC to your Thanksgiving to-do list. The official Balloon
Inflation area will be open to the public today between 3 & 10 p.m. If you enter at 79th
Street and Columbus
Avenue, you'll then be able to preview the four
new balloons that are debuting in this year's parade. Among them are Angry Birds' Red, Scrat and
his acorn from Twentieth Century Fox's "Ice Age" film series and
Sinclair Oil's DINO the dinosaur.

This article was originally posted on the Huffington Post's Entertainment page on Tuesday, November 24, 2015