MAP: Your Guide To The 2017 Dragon Con Parade
A pair of sleestaks from the Land of the Lost strut down Peachtree Street while participating in the Dragon*Con parade on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2011 in Atlanta. The 25th annual science fiction convention draws thousands of participants to downtown Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Dragon Con is coming up this weekend, and one of the convention’s most popular events is the Dragon Con parade, where cosplayers, enthusiasts and people watchers all gather along the streets of Downtown Atlanta to watch creative fans show off their projects.
For the uninitiated, the Dragon Con parade is a way to mark the official beginning of the convention. At the parade, spectators can expect to see anything from a screen-accurate Deadpool to an Iron Man made out of cardboard boxes and crayon. Some groups attend the parade to promote a cause — others just march for fun.
Dragon Con media relations manager Dan Carroll told WABE that the parade is “Dragon Con’s gift back to the community.”
Unlike the rest of the convention, the Dragon Con parade is 100 percent free to watch.
The parade begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday at the intersection of Peachtree Street and Linden Avenue, and ends between the Hyatt Regency and Marriott Marquis hotels at Peachtree Center Avenue.
Prospective spectators may want to plan ahead to get some of the better deals for parking. Many nearby streets will be closed to vehicle traffic, but the entire length of the parade route is lined with wide sidewalks awaiting droves of parade spectators. Dragon Con has partnered with an online service to allow visitors to prepay for their convention parking from their website.
Getting to the parade might be a bit of a challenge for some, but several options exist other than driving straight to the parade’s area. MARTA recommends making use of Peachtree Center station, which lies just below the convention area.
According to the Dragon Con website, the convention will also provide a courtesy shuttle that runs every 30 to 45 minutes. From 7:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday, the standard courtesy shuttle routes will be replaced with a single parade shuttle route, allowing guests more convenient, quick movement in a handicap accessible bus.
See an interactive map of the parade route below, including an approximation of the Dragon Con parade shuttle stops, based on information from the Dragon Con website:
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