A few years ago our county was having its county convention and bad weather rolled in that morning and the parade was cancelled. This year since none of the member depts. wanted to host the convention, the county association took over to find places to host the events that would be part of the convention, but a parade would not be part of the convention this year. A car and motorcycle show would be part of the convention which would mean find a parking lot to setup and place vehicles to be displayed which could include some fire apparatus old and new. In the past years when a parade was held mostly members of the fire service and their families are the crowd and that would be few, plus lack of community groups participating in the parade.

I have seen parade movie films and photos from decades back that people have posted on the internet where when there was a fire dept. parade the whole community came out including school or fire dept. marching bands, majorettes, pom pom  girls, local businesses and community groups also got involved in the parades.

Our State Fire Association has a convention parade but many depts. are not getting involved in the parade like they use to unless they had a new piece of fire apparatus that was on display during the convention. So the parade will last a two to three hours where it took longer than that in the years past  and our  county parades have gotten to be close to 30 minutes or more depending.

Some places maybe doing well with their parades but are parades becoming a thing of the past and maybe just have a festival to just show off what you have while it sits still.