AccuWeather spoke with Will Coss, executive producer for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, on how preparations for the holiday celebration could be impacted by the weather and how they're preparing.
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00:00 have Will Koss, the executive producer of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
00:04 joining us now this morning. Will, thank you so much for being here in such a
00:07 busy week. Thank you so much for having me. Of course. Okay, got to ask the big
00:13 questions this morning, right? So we've got two days until the parade begins. In
00:17 terms of weather, where does that rank when it comes down to those pre-parade
00:22 preparations and concerns? Weather's always a hot topic here on the parade
00:29 production end of things. We've been tracking and monitoring the weather for
00:34 the last couple of weeks and watching the the evolving storm. We're prepared.
00:38 The parade is a rain or shine event. We've been working for the last 12
00:42 months to prepare this great parade to start and kick off on on the Upper West
00:48 Side and make its way all the way down through New York City. So we're prepared
00:51 for all of our situations. We're grateful that the weather looks like it's
00:54 turning around and it's gonna be playing our favor on Thanksgiving morning. So
00:59 excited to share another fantastic Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with all
01:03 of New York City and America. It's always been so amazing to me how the
01:06 coordination of the parade comes together and I have to ask you in terms
01:10 of coordinating for different weather conditions, is there like one thing
01:14 that's worse than others? Like is it a thunderstorm? Is it snow? Is it wind? Or
01:18 is it all kind of created equal when it comes to planning ahead of time? I'd say
01:24 it's all equal to a certain extent. You know there's there are
01:28 different factors that impact a section of our production differently. Obviously
01:33 a very wet parade will have an impact on our costume operation and some of our
01:39 balloons and our float elements will have to dry out and you know take a
01:42 little bit more time on the back end of the production process for us. But in the
01:48 end we build all of our elements to sustain a variety of weather conditions.
01:53 Our 5,000 plus volunteers are prepared for any weather condition and we're
02:00 really out here and looking forward to bringing this great tradition to New York
02:03 City and I think the excitement of the parade and the work that we've all put
02:08 in to get to parade day is gonna push us past any potential weather
02:14 hurdles. Love it. Absolutely love it. You know what I've got to ask you and look I
02:19 don't want any bias in terms of all the excitement of the parade because there
02:23 are so many things that make it great but let's jazz it up a little bit.
02:26 Anything that maybe is a little new or anything that in particular our viewers
02:30 can look forward to this year or even just a fan favorite that you look
02:34 forward to every year? That's a great question. There's a lot of newness this
02:39 year. For the first time in our parade history we're gonna be three and a half
02:44 hours of broadcast entertainment so we're stepping off on the Upper West
02:48 Side at 830 in the morning. It's an extra half hour of parade so more more time for
02:54 performances, more time to show off the parade route. We are a procession
02:58 through New York City so we've got a variety of new camera angles that are
03:01 gonna show off all of our floats, balloons, marching bands on the you know
03:06 the entire parade walk through through New York City. We've got new performances.
03:11 John Batiste will be kicking us off on the Upper West Side. We've got a variety
03:16 of theatrical performances from our friends over on Broadway and of course
03:22 we have the one and only the incomparable Cher who's gonna be joining
03:26 us to kick in and usher in the holiday season towards the end of our parade. I'm
03:31 so excited Cher is going to be doing the parade. That is so cool! What a fun year
03:37 Will, that's wonderful. It's super exciting. We've put a lot of
03:42 heart, a lot of time, a lot of effort to get to this point so we're looking
03:46 forward to kicking off this show with Tom Turkey at 830 in the morning and of
03:50 course closing out the 97th annual, the 97th excuse me, Macy's Thanksgiving Day
03:55 Parade with the one and only Macy Santa. So I hope everyone shows up and is
04:00 excited to to cheer us on, to stand shoulder to shoulder with your friends,
04:05 your family, your strangers and celebrate the great tradition of the Macy's
04:09 Thanksgiving Day Parade with us.