Parade of Floats will run Friday through Sunday evenings. 

Each year the San Antonio River Walk is home to the Ford Parade of Lanterns where ten beautiful 26-ft-long boats are filled with large illuminated lanterns floating throughout the downtown section of the River Walk. The pageantry is free to enjoy and held on the weekends nightly from 8-10 PM, weather permitting.

A map is posted in the photo gallery. The the starting point is the International Center (203 S. St. Mary’s St.), and the arrows show the path of the floats.  The 10 floats will make two laps throughout the downtown area and stay grouped together (a Go Rio tour boat may get mixed in). We encourage you to enjoy the parade from a restaurant patio, and you may wish to combine watching the floats with dinner or drinks (reference the map for restaurants on the parade route).  Please notify the restaurant of your preference to sit close to the river for optimum viewing.  This year the parade will only occur on the weekends (Friday/Saturday/Sunday evenings), and the floats do not go in the Shops at Rivercenter or into the Convention Center lagoons on the weekends due to heavy weekend boat traffic.

Please note: High wind or bad weather conditions can prevent the floats from running on any given night. We will post notices on social media and on this event page in the event floats will not run. We try to determine this as early as possible, but sometimes weather conditions change abruptly. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause. Some wind conditions do not prevent the entire event from occurring but can prevent floats from safely navigating through the River Walk Extension.  Boat drivers are empowered to make these decisions while on the water.  We cannot predict or provide notification for these route changes.