Photo gallery: Charlotte’s Thanksgiving Day parade - at night

For a short while Wednesday night, Tryon Street in uptown turned into an instrument-playing, costume-wearing, float-driving Thanksgiving Day parade – albeit a night before the holiday.

The parade stepped off around 6 p. m. with the nonprofit group Carolina Clowns, pushing the opening banner – a Novant Health Queen City turkey draped with Christmas lights.

Following were performers, marching bands, horse-drawn carriages, balloons and even segwalloons – balloons wrapped around Segways.

The Novant Health Thanksgiving Parade stretched the length of Tryon Street, from 9th Street to Stonewall Street. Crowds, in some places, bubbled into the street.

Charlotte’s Thanksgiving parade is the largest parade in the Southeast and the fourth-largest Thanksgiving parade in the country, according to the hospital.

This year marked the 75th anniversary of the parade.

See the Observer’s photo gallery below.

This story was originally published November 25, 2021 at 9:03 AM.

Gavin Off

The Charlotte Observer

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Gavin Off was previously the Charlotte Observer’s data reporter, since 2011. He also worked as a data reporter at the Tulsa World and at Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C. His journalism, including his data analysis and reporting for the investigative series Big Poultry, won multiple national journalism awards.