Paint the Night has taken its final bow at Disneyland. The parade ran for the last time on Thursday, August 20, closing out the entertainment slate built for the resort’s 70th anniversary, and we were on Main Street for it. Our video of the final performance is below.
Here’s the final show of Paint the Night at Disneyland to cleanse your timeline! We were surrounded by parade performers and their friends so this was the most high energy viewing of Paint the Night I’ve ever experienced. A fitting send off to this amazing parade!
— The Disney Scoop (@DisneyScoopGuy) August 21, 2026
The Room Was Full Of Performers
Parade performers and their friends turned out to watch, which made for the most high energy viewing of Paint the Night we have experienced, and a fitting send off for a parade that a lot of the people lining the route had spent years working on.
Disney Gave It Eleven Extra Days
The closing date was not the original plan. Paint the Night was scheduled to end with the 70th anniversary celebration itself on August 9, but Disney extended the parade and the Wondrous Journeys fireworks show through August 20, giving both an eleven day reprieve that carried them past D23 weekend and right up to the start of Halloween Time.
In its final stretch the parade ran twice nightly, at 8:45 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. Wondrous Journeys performed at 9:35 p.m. and kept its full fireworks version rather than the projections-only edition for the remainder of the run. Both gave their last performances on the same night.
Eleven Years And Three Homecomings
Paint the Night did not start in Anaheim. It debuted at Hong Kong Disneyland in the autumn of 2014 before Disneyland brought it to Main Street in May 2015 for the Diamond Celebration, the park’s 60th anniversary. It ran there into the following stretch of the celebration, then returned in a different form at Disney California Adventure for the first Pixar Fest in 2018, minus the Frozen float, which was too tall to clear the Red Car Trolley wires.
The 70th brought it home. Disneyland confirmed the return in October 2024 and the parade came back on May 16, 2025, with the Frozen float restored, refreshed performer costumes and the Disneyland 70th logo added to the drum float. It paused on November 9, 2025 to make room for A Christmas Fantasy Parade, then returned on January 30, 2026 for the final run.
What The Parade Was
Seventeen minutes, more than 1.5 million LED lights, and a structure that moved through Disney and Pixar in units. Tinker Bell led it off ahead of the Peter Pan unit, followed by the Monsters, Inc. Dance Party with Mike and Sulley on a float of color-changing doors, the Cars Electric Roadway Jam led by Lightning McQueen with Mack behind him, The Little Mermaid Electric Watercolors carrying Ariel alongside Sebastian, Flounder and King Triton, and the Toy Story Electric Rodeo anchored by Slinky Dog with Buzz, Woody and Jessie.
Holding it together was Owl City’s “When Can I See You Again?”, woven through with the Baroque Hoedown melody that has run under Disney’s electrical parades since 1972. That song has always been the parade’s sharpest trick and its cruelest one. It asks the question every time the last float rounds the corner, and on Thursday night it got a real answer.
What Replaces It
The slot does not stay empty. The daytime Mickey and Friends Halloween Cavalcade began the very next day as Halloween Time opened across the resort, and A Christmas Fantasy Parade follows in November. Looking further out, Magic Happens is set to return in 2027 alongside a broader revival of Disneyland’s entertainment library.
Whether Paint the Night comes back a fourth time is an open question, and history is on its side. The parade has now returned twice after being called finished, once for an anniversary and once for a festival. Disneyland’s 75th arrives in 2030.
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