If you moved to Boise after 2003, you probably have no idea why the Boise Music Festival sometimes gets called the “Boise River Festival.” Once called America’s Finest Family Festival, the Boise River Festival walked so that events like Boise Music Festival and Treefort Music Festival could run.
What Was the Boise River Festival?
Created in 1991, the Boise River Festival was a multi-day event in June that filled venues all over the city with events like live music, a Blue Angels air show, Boise’s first hot air balloon festival and nite glow, and sports competitions including everything from golf and softball to bowling and fun runs.
However, the events people missed the most after the festival disappeared in 2004 were the two unique parades it brought to Downtown Boise. The premiere event was the Nite-Lite Parade where the floats in the parade literally floated down the Boise River. They were designed by the same company that creates floats for the Tournament of Roses parade in California.
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According to an old Idaho Statesman article, the floats reached up to 17 feet tall, so parts of them had to be engineered to retract when they passed under four of the bridges that criss-crossed the Boise River. KTVB did a really cool recap of what it took to create the floats on the 208 a few years ago. I moved to Boise in 2010, so it’s the only video I’ve ever seen of the Nite-Lite Parade.
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