27 Apr 2024 It was soooooo slow. We left after an hour. We had seen the vanguard, some Tundra trucks, mostly ad stuff. My sis told me later a vintage fire truck had broken down and was causing stoppage of the parade. She was watching on TV. She said the KSAT hosts were scrambling to fill time. We are not going to bother to attend these parades next year. It's better and easier on TV. read more

It was our first time at this fiesta event! We sat in the Chick-fil-A section and they gave us a goodie bag with a fiesta medal, water, sandwich, fan, and sunglasses. You couldn't go to the grass area behind us because it was wristband only but the grass area across the street from us had TONS of free samples, raffles, and games to win a medal. Next time we come, we may not stay as long as we did. Once it gets to the 10th high school band and dance/cheer team, it gets a bit repetitive . The UT band was awesome UTSA should've outdone them since it's our city's event tho. read more

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This was my first year of the Fiesta Flambeau Parade and I had a good time, but in comparison to Battle of the Flowers Parade, it felt a little disorganized. I don't know if it was because we were sitting towards the end of the parade (La Villita area), but there were A LOT of large gaps between floats. Anyways! Fiesta Flambeau was still pretty awesome and some of my favorite floats were Our Lady of the Lake University and San Antonio Water System; "May The Flush Be With You" ..LOL! One fun fact about this very famous Fiesta event is that the Fiesta Flambeau parade is also the largest night (illuminated) parade in the state of Texas (WOW!). Before you go to the parade, here are some things you need to know: 1- You can purchase tickets in advance (Fiesta Store/Best Tickets) or bring your own chair and camp in designated areas. 2- If you are camping, you can also bring an ice chest with beverages to stay hydrated. 3- There are a lot of food vendors through the parade route, so don't worry about getting "hangry". 4- You will NOT find parking near the parade, so try to ride share or use public transportation. Hope you enjoy the parade and VIVA FIESTA! read more

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As usual, this was an awesome parade! Wonderful evening and not too hot. The Fiesta Flambeau (AKA the night parade) takes place on the last Satuday of Fiesta and consists of the same floats that are in the Battle of Flowers parade, but for this parade, all of the floats are illuminated. The parade route begins on Broadway, makes its way in front of the Alamo, then heads down Commerce street and ends near Santa Rosa Hospital. The vanguard starts at 6:45pm and the actual parade begins between 7:30p and 7:45p. Get down there early and walk through the streets and get you some delicious food and drink from many of the booths set up on the side streets. I don't think any of the booths sell alcoholic drinks, but you can find aguas frescas drinks and more. Food consists of the typical Fiesta food; gorditas, chicken on a stick, tacos, turkey legs, roasted corn, Mexican street corn in a cup, etc. Several areas along the parade route have bleacher seating; tickets can be purchased on this site: https://www.fiestaflambeauparade.org/hours-location Or you can purchase them from the Fiesta Store on Broadway. The folding street chairs are sold by multiple groups - churches, boy scouts, etc. Each group is assigned a certain number of chairs to sell. You pretty much have to know someone who is selling them to find out where to buy those. Better yet, find a friend who lives along the parade route and get yourself invited to their party! You are allowed to bring your own coolers and food with you. About 750,000 people attend this parade, it's not too bad driving or Ubering down there since not everyone goes at the same time but trying to catch an Uber HOME when all 750,000 people are leaving at the same time is NOT a good idea. The driver will not be able to get to where you are - TRUST me on this one. I recommend taking the Via Park and Ride to and from or find a good parking lot that is not too far away but with a good escape route that gets you off the city streets and onto the highway quickly. (and then keep that parking location a SECRET so no one else finds out about it!) read more

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I had such a good time till the sprinklers went off. We got a perfect spot, but it was too good to be true. This year was the perfect weather for fiesta that had me dreading when summer would begin. The floats felt like they were quieter this year, but they were still amazingly cool to see. The bands were so good. I love the sounds of the drums and the trumpets. All the band members had glowsticks everywhere and they had some. The only thing that was a downer was that we got rained on by the sprinklers that turned on later in the nighy. One of my family members got totally soaked. It didn't stop us from enjoying the rest of the parade. All in all it was good night and now we have some fun memories. read more

Fiesta Flambeau Parade - Fiesta 2018 - Ticket Sales Near Me - San Antonio, Texas

My third and final Fiesta event for 2018. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to watch this event from a great vantage point: an apartment complex on Broadway. We sat in the apartment's parking structure with a pretty good view of the parade, and brought all our own food. And it was during this parade that I thought how great the city of San Antonio is because everyone came together for a great show. You didn't see fights or anything like that... You just came out with family and friends to celebrate your town. I really admired that. (What I didn't admire were the dumbasses on the other balcony shouting, "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" when the Defense Language Institute's foreign students marched through with their countries' flags. I thought that parade was a beautiful sight, only to be messed up by the jerks across from me. As an active duty service member who attended D.L.I. twice, I know that those foreign students are here in our city learning not just military matters, but also American morals and values to take back to their countries. So those 'patriots' on the other balcony really set a bad example for us as a city and country. I was pretty close to pitching a bottle across to those jackasses. But I digress...) I went down to walk along a little bit of the route and maybe made it a half-mile down before turning around. What I saw was a LOT of trash under the bleachers, but also lots of people simply enjoying themselves. But check it... BIG KUDOS to the men and women of the City of San Antonio who cleaned up that mess! As soon as the parade was over the city went straight to work cleaning up. The next day when I was on my way home, I drove the parade route to see how it looked. I could not believe how clean the streets were! It had only been about 12 hours since the parade had ended and the only remnants left on the street were the hard-to-clean confetti from the eggs. They did an amazing job! read more

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FIESTA is just a magical time in the city that unites us for a celebration of love, happiness, fun while building memories. The overall aesthetic of FIESTA is surreal. 11 days of pure love for the city with 125 years of tradition. The FIESTA Flambeau Parade is pretty much the major closing event many San Antonians affiliate with FIESTA. Uniting hundreds of thousands of patrons in the heart of The Alamo City it's a parade like no other. It may not be the Macy's Parade in NY or a few other nationally acclaimed ones but heck ours has it's own spin to it! Held at night it is a Night Light Parade and from the floats to bands everything is lit up in the night. The streets shut down and everyone lines us while screaming "Show us your shoes!" to the royal courts. You're able to bring in your own coolers with food and drinks; however, no need to fear if you don't want to as there are TONS of vendors around. Make sure to bring cash though to make it easiest. Everyone has a great time and it's an even you can make some solid memories with family and friends! PS- for my fellow germ phobes bring hand sanitizer if you have to use the porta potties... read more

This was my first Fiesta parade, we've lived in SA for 3 years and the scheduling of this one fit our schedule, we have friends who live along the parade route, and we were able to manage sweet parking with a short walk. Parking at the SAMA was suggested by a fellow Yelper, only $20 and it's a 5-10 min walk to Broadway... Easy. We left at 10pm and there was some traffic getting back on 35 but it wasn't bad, cops directed all traffic. The parade: it was long! We couldn't last for the entire thing but we also got down there around 2:30 which made for a very long day in general, plus my husband and I had to work that morning (so incredibly tired by the time the parade started lol!). That's ok; beer, food, AC, private bathrooms, and friends made it worth it. Yes, we got to enjoy the parade from a bar and I have no complaints with that. We don't do crowds so I don't think we'd buy regular tix only because of the amount of people we'd be around however the reserved seating in front of the bar seemed very well organized and the "audience" was behaving nicely ;-) The theme: I was a little disappointed that the theme wasn't more apparent in the floats (also why weren't there more floats?), band music, and costumes in general of the participating organizations. We saw about 10 Boy Scout troops (why not group them together and they each carry their own banner?). Spacing between groups lagged really bad at points. The "royalty" seemed to be the only ones with decorated floats so maybe that's how these parades work but more color and variation of each group that passed would have been welcomed. If there's going to be a theme I expect it to be seen in every group and hear bands playing TV show theme songs; I think the bands could have even branched out and done movie songs too... I realize every band can't play the exact same music, there needs to be some variation. I wasn't expecting to hear pop music though. The runners that started the parade were by far the best, as strange as that may sound! They were high-fiving people, their costumes were great (and matched the theme!) - Lucy and Ricky, The Simpsons, The Flintstones, Pac Man; there were many costumes and I loved that! The light displays were neat especially on the bands - I loved seeing how the kids decorated their instruments & uniforms. I wish more groups had showed that kind of effort! The light parade is a fun concept compared to the other day time parades, I would go back again. We'd like to try a river parade but have heard horror stories... One year we'll brave it, one year. read more

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Viva Fiesta!!! This parade is the largest illuminated night parade in the world! I really like this parade, because it's at a time when temperatures are down from the heat of the day. Some of San Antonio's other Fiesta parades can get hot! This annual parade is held during Fiesta, a celebration commemorating Texas' independence from Mexico that lasts a few weeks in late April. It's a cool parade that's all self illuminated! Parade marchers attend from all over the world to come here. There's usually a few out-of-state marching bands that rock their tunes out. All of the marching bands carry glow sticks, or LED lights. My favorite is always the Boy Scouts with their gas torches. The floats are usually around a theme. 2018 is the 300th anniversary of the city's founding, so watch out for the theme "Three Centuries... One City." The parade is free, but you have to pay for seats. Tickets are available at the Fiesta Store on Broadway. The route goes down Broadway, and takes a right on Commerce. In my opinion, the best seats are near Maverick Park where there's plenty of activities. Keep an out for food vendors selling local cuisines- they make some of Fiesta's best foods! People bring their own chairs, and camp out for good seats for this parade, and the Battle of the Flowers Parade. During the later part of Fiesta, it's a non-stop party on Broadway between the parades. This parade absolutely trashes Broadway, one of the major roads in SA. Huge crowds come out for this parade. The place is littered with garbage afterwords, but they're always quick to clean it up with a huge crew of workers, so it's not so bad. Bathrooms can be a bit of an issue- you usually have to strike a deal with someone who owns a port-a-potty. There's a whole racket with portable restrooms at the parade. Don't even think about going into one of these businesses along the route- they'll shoo you outta there so fast. If you don't want to brave the crowds, it's broadcast on KSAT. read more

This was my first time at the Fiesta Flambeau Parade but I wasn't a spectator, instead I rode in a carriage in the actual parade! It was magical from this perspective as I got to see all of the spectators and the behind the scenes of how the parade is put on. I was amazed at the staging area and how they assembled the different entries into one cohesive unit. Everyone was so friendly and in the Fiesta spirit! This parade is a big part of Fiesta and I hope to participate next year! read more

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Best micheladas are at market square during the parade! Awesome music at all entrances at market square so total of 4/5 djs playing different music! There is a wide variety of food and drinks all around market square! read more

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We headed out and parked between Navarro/College. Pretty pricey though. We walked out to meet friends by the Alamo and had a amazing view of the marching bands and the floats etc... There were booth offering beverages/ icy cones etc... So much colorful people. Temperatures were somewhat high 80'f . I would recommend anyone to make sure you wear a shady hat or carry an umbrella if you intend to hang all day. Later if you have the appetite still or want better grub check out Iron Cactus for amazing Tex Mex and I love their melon margarita (agave mix) read more

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How could it be that no one has reviewed the Flambeau Parade?! Most of my memories of this parade are from when I was a young one. My parents would bring myself and my siblings. We would sit with my cousins and wear glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces. Fast forward a few years later and you will still see plenty of little kids running around with noise makers, cascarones (confetti filled egg), and glow in the dark apparatus. Vendors line the parade route with all drink of carnival food and drink. This year I saw Dominos' pizza boys with personal sized pepperoni pizzas. If you want bleacher seats, you'll need to buy from the Fiesta store on Broadway. This year, the official Fiesta twitter posted pics of people standing in line on ticket sale day. If memory serves correctly, the bleacher seat tickets sold out in two or three days. If you don't want bleacher seats, you will have to decide on where along the parade route you would like to sit (ex. on Broadway and Brooklyn) and find out who is selling tickets for that section. Usually, it'll be a church or boy scout troop. As for the parade itself, there will be Fiesta royalty, high school marching bands (sometimes you'll see an out of state school), university marching bands, cheerleaders, and dance studios. This year, the San Antonio Talons and Houston Texans made an appearance. My tip for avoiding heavy traffic on the way out: leave about 15 min before the parade ends. read more

Fiesta Fiesta!! The night parade is so much fun! Like another reviewer said, I'm really surprised that other's haven't reviewed it yet. I've been going to the flambeau parade for the past few years and have always had a good time. The parade is a mix of marching bands, floats and fiesta royalty. I've sat in both the bleachers and chair seats, and I feel like both have a good view. (We usually get seats at Jones and 10th near Maverick Park). You can bring your own food/drinks but there are several booths selling tacos, pizza, turkey legs, funnel cakes (pretty much anything and everything). Be prepared for the massive crowds and traffic downtown. I usually park at SAMA and it's $20 but it's conveniently located and it's nice to know that someone is watching your car for you. Also, be prepared to use a porta-potty if you have to use the restroom. read more