Essential Spokane Lilac Festival

You know summer is almost here when it's Spokane Lilac Festival time. The annual parade and it's associated events have been a Spokane tradition since 1938 and is always held on the 3 Saturday in May.

Some of the events include:

Junior Lilac Parade - It's a time for the children of Spokane to put on a parade of their very own. Here's a chance for local middle school bands, scout troops and drill teams to strut their stuff on the streets of Spokane. If your child is middle school age or below they can participate. Just click over to the Spokane Jr. Lilac Parade home page for all the information.

Torchlight Parade - The streets of downtown Spokane are closed to traffic to make way for over 200 floats, marching bands, military drill teams and antique cars, to name a few. It's a great family event. Visit the official website to get the dates and times of all the events connected with the festival.

The Torchlight parade starts at 7:45 so make sure to get to downtown Spokane early and be aware of the which streets are going to be blocked off. You can get a copy of the Torchlight Parade route here.

There is plenty of parking at the Spokane Arena but be aware that you will need to walk through Riverfront Park to get to the downtown area. This can be a scary place at night so I would suggest traveling in a group.

My son and I got there late last time and ended up parking in a lot by the Spokane River just off Division street. We walked along the river into Riverfront park and then over to Main Street

We got lucky and noticed that there was an open area on the Parkade parking garage ramp just across from Cyrus O'Leary's which overlooks Main street. It was a great place to get a birds eye view of the parade as it went by.

I hope that this information was useful and if you come to the Lilac Festival you have great time.