HOT SPRINGS NATIONAL PARK, Arkansas — The First Ever 18th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade, scheduled for March 17, 2021, on legendary Bridge Street in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, has been canceled due to uncertainties surrounding the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“Because we can’t be certain what public-health restrictions will remain in place by spring, the parade committee decided not to have our customary 30,000 parade fans gather in downtown Hot Springs on St. Patrick’s Day,” Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison said. “It wouldn’t be fair for us to ask parade participants, guest celebrities and our fans to commit to participating and then have to cancel at the last minute.”
“The whole point of the parade is to have the downtown area full of people having the time of their lives along 98-foot-long Bridge Street,” Visit Hot Springs Marketing Director Bill Solleder said, “and the last thing we’d want to do is have a gigantic party where all our guests weren’t safe. The third time’s the charm — lucky charm.”
“We’ll kick out the jams in 2022,” Arrison said, “and you can bet your green derby hat this little parade will be back bigger and more fun than ever. We’ll let everybody know the details for that parade starting in the spring of next year.”
The parade, founded in 2003, has gained international fame for attracting more than 30,000 fun-loving spectators to downtown Hot Springs to watch an array of celebrities, marchers, floats, strutters, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Irish Elvis impersonators, dancers, Irish wolfhounds, waddlers and leprechauns march down 98-foot-long Bridge Street, the World’s Shortest Street in Everyday Use, according to Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
For more information contact Steve Arrison at 501-321-2027.