It may have rained on McAllen’s holiday parade, but that didn’t prevent thousands of people from attending the annual celebration in December.
More than 180,000 people attended the 2022 McAllen Holiday Parade despite the downpour that night, Assistant City Manager Joe Vera told the city commission on Monday.
Vera kicked off a review of the city’s Christmas festivities during a workshop, going over how the parade and the South Pole Illuminated Festival performed this past year.
While the 180,000 attendees were fewer than the number of attendees seen in 2021, the city attributed that to the unfavorable weather, which led to confusion among some residents on whether the parade was canceled or not.
But as we now know, the show went on as planned with the help of more than 2,700 volunteers and participants and $1,191,900 in investment from sponsors.
The investment was a 43% increase from 2021.
An economic study conducted by the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley reported $11.8 million in economic impact with an average spending per family of $170.
This year’s total economic impact was also less than the previous year but that is also thought to be because of the fewer attendees because of the rain.
The study also found that among those who attended the parade, there was equal representation of people of different household income.
The two largest groups were people with an annual income between $15,001 and $35,000 — representing 22% of attendees — and people with an annual income between $35,001 and $75,000 — representing another 22% of attendees.
Nearly 600 people responded to the survey.
As for the South Pole Illuminated Festival held outside the McAllen Convention Center, there were 140,600 visitors.
The festival, which ran from Dec. 6 to Jan. 6, featured photos with Santa, more than 100 giant lanterns, 25 illuminated color-changing trees, fireworks, live music, holiday movies and simulated snowfall.
The festival also had a South Pole Express train, a giant Ferris wheel that was part of their grand carnival and a holiday food market.
It boasted that 33.6% of its guests traveled more than 50 miles to attend and generated $16.5 million in regional economic impact. It also created more than 210 jobs and received more than $300,000 in investment from sponsors.
Mayor Javier Villalobos and the city commissioners thanked the sponsors and staff for the work in putting the festivities together every year.
“A lot of times people don’t quite understand the reason we do what we do,” Villalobos said, pointing to the total economic impact in December, which was the city’s best in its history.
“Thank you for the information,” he said. “It shows the community some of the impact of what we all do.”
