Eugene’s 2025 BRiGHT Parade
This year we partnered up with Eugene BRiGHT Parade, a celebration of all the things that make Eugene wonderful — illuminated and in motion. A revival of the Eugene Celebration and EUG Parade, the event brings together creative and community groups throughout the city, lights us all up, and sends us on a parade through downtown. Any foot- hand- or electric- powered entries are welcome, and we decided to build a bike-powered float.
Leading up to the event we tabled with past- and future- S.L.U.G. queens and SHIFT Cycles at the downtown Art Walk. We put on workshops with the BRiGHT Parade at MECCA and Lookout for participants to come and get help from our low-voltage heroes, advising folks on how to illuminate their costumes and floats.
For our own entry, the crew worked out of Mark Davis’s Westish shop where we decorated a side-by-side tandem recumbent quadracycle (two bikes bolted together side by side) and attached a trailer to it. Taper provided music on his custom modular synth rig, and would be pulled in the back of the cart we found on Craigslist. Chris built a wood bench-and-lectern that Taper would sit in that fit perfectly in the cart, and we began decorating it. Suzi and Ada had a really fun idea with local natural themes so we decked out the bike with trees and mushrooms and the trailer would be vaguely-boat-shaped as we pulled it past the Willamette.
We made the lights on the cycle react to the music. Ryan and Taper developed a system where Taper’s eurorack module could control the red, blue, and green LEDs of LEDs mounted on the bike using a custom circuit box and Arduino system. Chris found some really slick VU meter units that would light up some mushrooms that were on the front of the bike. Both of these went through a little blue box that Taper put together to wire in to his synthesizer.
And in the end it all came together. The float survived transport from West Eugene to downtown. It was a grand time. These community events that EMS has contributed to and involved ourselves in over the last year and longer have been a wonderful opportunity to build things together and connect with Eugene’s creative community. We’re looking forward to what’s next!
