EDITOR'S NOTE: Multimedia journalist Logan Hall spoke with an Anaheim resident about having a float in the Anaheim Fall Festival parade. Click the arrow above to watch the video.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — As a 45-year-resident of Anaheim, Robert Sanchez has fond memories of the city's annual Halloween parade and festival.
"I remember as a 9-year-old with my family putting up a chair along the parade route and watching all of the floats come by," said Sanchez to Spectrum News.
The community's celebration and the floats' image left an indelible mark on Sanchez, who now serves as the parade's Spanish commentator and float builder.
"That moment of seeing those floats made me go ahead and want to participate when I became older," he said.
The Anaheim Halloween Parade and Fall Festival return Saturday, Oct. 29, in the downtown Center Street Promenade after a two-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic and pandemic-related restrictions.
In the past couple of years, organizers have dealt with the coronavirus pandemic and pandemic-related restrictions with the fall festival. Last year, the fall festival held a drive-thru parade with spectators driving by in their cars to see them. In 2020, organizers canceled the parade and hosted a virtual event.
The 98-year-old festival, which celebrates Halloween, Dia de Los Muertos and the Harvest season, usually attracts thousands of residents and visitors to the parade route and downtown Anaheim, where there is the main stage, food trucks, entertainment and other festivities.
The first-ever festival began on Oct. 30, 1924, with New York Yankees legend Babe Ruth serving as the grand marshal.
The parade has grown tremendously over the years, with nearly 100 floats slowly driving through the parade route, said Jody Daily, president of the Anaheim Fall Festival, a nonprofit.
Daily said there would be plenty of new floats this year and old favorites along the mile-and-a-half parade route that begins in city hall, travels west toward the Center Street Promenade, and ends on Broadway and Walnut Street.
"It's going to be a mix of the old and the new," said Daily.
Like in years past, the Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center hosts a Dia de Los Muertos altar in the museum courtyard open to the public. The museum also has a Houdini exhibit.
During the day, there'll be a kid's costume contest, where the grand prize winner gets two tickets to Disneyland and a separate costume contest for fur dog babies.
The Disneyland Jazz band and mariachis are expected to make an appearance. There'll be marching bands from local schools and plenty of people dressed in costume.
The festivities in the Center Street Promenade begin run from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The parade starts at 7 p.m.
For Sanchez, he decided to build a float this year - a 12-foot tall skeleton wearing a colorful dress made out of papier-mache.
"I'm Hispanic, and the Day of the Dead is very important for us to remember our ancestors," said Sanchez. "That's one of the reasons why I participated so that I could give back to the Hispanic community."
Sanchez said the Halloween and fall festival is everything Anaheim stands for and an event that brings the community together.
And after a trying two years with the pandemic, he expects a large turnout.
"We're honoring people who have been part of this community for years," he said. "We are a large city with a small-town community feel."