Wet but colourful: Swinging Sixties at London's New Year's Day Parade 2014
The World's Biggest New Year Parade
The prestigious parade, the biggest of its kind in the world, runs every year from Green Park via Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square and Whitehall to Westminster Palace, passing a number of iconic London landmarks for a world-wide TV audience.
Traditionally, several highly skilled international marching bands are invited to the parade, and the London boroughs are staging a competition for the best entry among their ranks, so being in the parade for the second time after 2013 is a great honour.
Despite the weather, hundreds of thousands lined the streets for the full three hours of the parade to cheer on the participants.
New Rhythms, New Costumes, New Performers
This year we were supported by dancers from the 2012 Legacy Project, who added visual impact, setting the self-designed costumes brilliantly in scene.
The Legacy by the 2012 Legacy Project will be performed on 25 January at The Place and also features several Pandemonium Drummers as dancers.
Press Echo
Our contribution to the parade featured on BBC London News, and a photographer from the Press Association managed to capture a great shot, which was distributed to news outlets world-wide, which you might have seen on ITV, Huffington Post, Mirror, Evening Standard and elsewhere.The journalists could not quite decide whether our drum captain represented John Lennon (ITV) or Jethro Tull (Evening Standard).
Just before the start of the parade, a TV interview featured a small group of drummers including Pandemonium Drummers Secretary, who reminded the audience of our role in the London 2012 Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
Our photographer Vilma Laryea captured us on multiple points along the parade route:
2014 London New Year's Day Parade Photo Gallery
Photos by Vilma Laryea