Hometown festivals and Main Street parades are a tradition in many cities and towns, but some take those ideas a step further to create events that reflect a community — and help build its identity.
A community parade at dusk
On Hilton Head Island, the town was looking to showcase its most obvious attraction — the beach — while creating an event highlighting the town’s respect for its natural resources and its family-friendly feel.
The Hilton Head Lantern Parade fits the bill.
On a Saturday evening each November, a parade of glowing lanterns lights up the beach at sunset. About 1,200 to 1,500 people march in a parade, carrying everything from large, colorful bird lanterns to umbrellas decorated to look like glowing jellyfish. The parade celebrates not only the island’s wildlife but also its people. Lanterns have, for example, highlighted Mitchellville, a historic Gullah community. A few bands — imagine loose, New Orleans brass bands —march, while another 3,000 to 5,000 spectators line the sandy route.
Natalie Harvey, the Town of Hilton Head Island’s director of cultural affairs, said the parade started in 2019 and quickly became a hit.
“Nothing like that was done in our immediate area or in South Carolina. And nothing on the beach, which is a beautiful backdrop,” Harvey said.
The parade is open to everyone from Scout groups to nonprofits. The town’s Office of Cultural Affairs has workshops for schools to get younger audiences involved.
“We have professional artists in the parade, but it doesn’t require professional artists. It really is ‘Come out and enjoy being part of it.’ You can be in the parade or you can sit on the beach and watch everybody go by. It’s really magical,” she said.
This year’s parade, scheduled for November 18, will march a 0.3-mile stretch of the beach and end at Lowcountry Celebration Park, allowing people who are unable to walk on the beach to set up chairs and see the parade.
“It’s turned into one of the most favorite pastimes for islanders. We have so many tourists that come to Hilton Head, and we love them. We have so many wonderful things here because of tourists. We have wonderful restaurants and parks and infrastructure,” Harvey said. “But this has been something the local community has as its own and a tradition to look forward to.”
Mayor Alan Perry attended the parade for the first time last year, and he admitted to being surprised by the spectacle.
“I was absolutely amazed and astonished by the number of people that were there and how beautiful it was,” Perry said. “But the parade also takes into account what’s important to us. Sea turtles, estuaries, birds, wildlife. It’s all represented by different folks out there, their creations. It ties in very well with what our community is about. The arts are a big part of Hilton Head.”
The City of Halloween
The City of Conway set a goal a few years back to make a top-10 list of cities to visit at Christmas, but leaders soon learned that even if a city looks like a holiday movie set, there are a thousand other cities vying for the same attention.“So, we pivoted,” said Adm Emrick, Conway’s city administrator. “We didn’t turn our backs on Christmas, but we decided to focus our efforts on something that became a game changer for us.”
It began in 2020, when the city bought about 500 plastic pumpkins and hung them from the majestic live oak trees that line Main Street.
“We bought every pumpkin at every Walmart in our county, all of the neighboring counties and several states away. If any city employee was traveling, they had to stop at a Walmart and clean them out of pumpkins,” he said. “It was an immediate hit.”
By 2021, more pumpkins and decorations were added. The city started to become a place where people would visit at Halloween. In January 2022, Emrick pitched an idea that would put Conway on the Halloween map – and generate much buzz and social media attention.
“What if we change the name of the city to ‘Halloween?’ Just for the month of October and clearly, we don’t do it in any legal name-changey sort of way,” Emrick suggested.
Conway got busy, dropping its traditional fall festival, and partnering with churches, organizations and businesses that already were doing Halloween events. City employees jumped aboard, suggesting decorating themes and new events.
In September 2022, Mayor Barbara Blain-Bellamy announced that the city would ceremonially change its name to Halloween, South Carolina for the month of October.
The celebration made sense financially, increasing downtown foot traffic and filling restaurants. Conway saw an 18% increase in hospitality fee collections for the month, year over year. That was without its top earner, Chick-Fil-A, because the Conway location was closed that month for renovations.
Emrick said the best measure of success were the comments on social media, with residents and visitors gushing about Conway’s October fun. The event was so successful, Halloween, South Carolina will become an annual event.
A Christmas parade with a rural touch
Many small towns and cities host a Christmas parade each year, with floats and bands and politicians. The Town of Lowrys — population 184 — hosts one, too, but it sets itself apart from other holiday parades.
The Lowrys parade was started about 30 years ago by a saddle club, when a group of horse riders were looking for a parade opportunity where the planners didn’t worry about horse manure.
“They said, ‘We’re going to start a parade but ours will be different. We’re not going to have cars or trucks. There will be no marching bands, no golf carts, no ATVs. We’ll have farm equipment, livestock, horses and donkeys,’” said Lowrys Mayor Joey Wilson.
The small parade was immediately popular with residents of the farming community. It grew as more people became interested in restoring antique tractors, and the number of tractors in the parade jumped from 25 to more than 200. Also, when the parade started, the founders wanted families to enjoy themselves and not have to spend any money. There are no vendors at the parade, no food to buy, no drinks to purchase. That decision caused tailgating along the parade route to take off.
“The parade starts at 1 p.m. If you don’t have a parking place by 11 o’clock you’re out of luck,” Wilson said. “You need to bring food, or make a friend. But it’s definitely a place for tailgating.”
On the third Saturday of December, between 10,000 and 15,000 people show up to watch hundreds of horses and a couple hundred tractors parade through town. About 5,000 free half-pints of milk are handed out.
“It’s not particularly professional. There are 40 to 50 homemade floats, and you can tell they’re homemade,” he said. “It’s not for everybody. Someone told me it’s an incredibly boring parade. But old guys like to see old tractors and kids like horses.”
The mayor said the town doesn’t run the parade — “we host the parade” — adding that not many areas could pull off an event like this on a shoestring budget. He said the town spends less than $5,000 on the parade, using some accommodations tax money from Chester County.
“If this was in Charlotte, it’d cost half a million dollars. If you tried to have that parade in Atlanta, it would take 5,000 policemen. We do it with eight,” he said.
The mayor said the parade’s popularity stems from its timing so close to Christmas, coupled with its rural, home-grown feel.