We Built an App for Parade Drivers

We needed a better way to keep our parade drivers in sync with our performances, so we built one. Our new app uses timed STOP and GO cues synchronized with your music to give drivers a simple visual signal and now we’re making it available for other groups to use, too.

If you’ve ever been part of a parade performance, you know that keeping the performers and the vehicle moving together can be harder than it looks. Drivers need to know when the group is moving, when it has stopped to perform, and when it’s time to start moving again all while paying attention to everything else happening along the parade route.

We ran into that problem ourselves at Allegheny Eclipse, so we built something to solve it.

Our new app, Parade Cue, is a simple music player designed specifically for parade drivers. A performance track can be loaded with timed STOP and GO markers. As the music plays, the entire screen changes between green when the vehicle should be moving and red when it should be stopped. Instead of trying to watch the performers, remember musical cues, or keep track of timing, the driver gets one simple visual instruction.

It started as a tool we wanted for our own performances, but we quickly realized we probably aren’t the only group that could use it.

Marching bands, color guards, dance groups, community organizations, floats, and other parade performers all deal with some version of the same problem. So rather than keeping the app to ourselves, we decided to make it available for other organizations to use too.

Parade Cue is free to download and allows up to one minute of playback so you can try it with your own music and cues. Full-song playback can be unlocked with a one-time in-app purchase.

The iPhone version is available now on the Apple App Store, with an Android version coming soon.

This is a small project, but it represents something we love at Allegheny Eclipse: if we find something that could make performing a little easier or better, sometimes the answer is simply to build it ourselves and if it can help somebody else along the way, even better.

Give it a try for your next parade.