St. Patrick's parade offers big fun on a short street

Irish belly dancers. A dancing dinosaur. Giant horses. Tiny dogs. A troupe of Irish Elvis impersonators.

That's a whole lot of wacky to pack in 98 feet.

It's time for the World's Shortest St. Patrick's Day Parade, a small party of epic proportions that turns tiny Bridge Street in downtown Hot Springs into a green-filled zone of zaniness.

"It's like no other parade you've ever seen," says Steve Arrison, chief executive officer of the Hot Springs Advertising & Promotion Commission. "It's like the anti-parade."

In the 1940s, Ripley's Believe It Or Not declared Bridge Street the shortest working street in America. Now, every St. Patrick's Day, 40-45 parade participants march, dance and roll their way along it in a celebration of all things Irish.

This year, St. Patrick's Day falls on Saturday, plus it's also the start of spring break week and the day of the Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn. So, there's a lot to celebrate and the parade is responding accordingly.

It all starts with a big free concert by Grand Funk Railroad at 8 p.m. Friday on Bridge Street. Also on Friday, O'Kelley's World's Largest Inflatable Pop-Up Pub will open up for drinks and music starting at 5 p.m. at the corner of Convention Boulevard and Malvern Avenue.

But the biggest festivities are saved for Saturday, when the Blarney Stone Kissing Contest kicks things off at 5:30 p.m. followed by a performance by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders at 6:30 p.m.

The parade itself is starting an hour later than usual to give people time to get to Bridge Street from Oaklawn. This year, the official measuring of the parade route "to make sure it hasn't shrunk over the year" starts at 7:25 p.m.

The Oaklawn bugler will play "Call to the Post" and then the madness really begins.

This year, the celebrity starter is Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder and 'NSync's Joey Fatone is grand marshal. With them will be the Irish Order of Elvi, the O'Hobbie Waddlers "senior tappers," a women's roller derby team and a dancing mechanical dinosaur courtesy of the Mid-America Science Museum.

Everyone gets to watch and marvel as the 97-foot-long hook and ladder truck from the Hot Springs Fire Department makes the tricky turn and takes up nearly the entire parade route on its own.

It's not all humans and machinery. Animals will be represented too, from the low-to-the-ground marching pack of Irish dachshunds to the towering Budweiser Clydesdales, making their first parade appearance.

"We're real excited about that," Arrison says. "We've been trying to get them for 15 years."

Things get crowded on tiny Bridge Street so Arrison says those who want a spot on the 98-foot stretch better plan to get there early. And, given the space limitations, chairs are not allowed. But people are also welcome to line up along Central and Malvern avenues, where there are still viewing points.

Once the parade itself is over, Morris Day & The Time will keep the party going with a concert starting at 9 p.m.

"It's just the zaniest parade," Arrison says. "It's just zany and fun and everybody has a great time."

Weekend on 03/15/2018