2026 Solstice Parade Photos and Videos!

Santa Barbara Summer Solstice was back in a big way for 2026! The 52nd Anniversary! The theme was “Wave”, which inspired a wide range of meanings and creations! Plenty of ocean themed ensembles. Water, surfers, pirates, sea creatures. But also hand waving and trippy wave patterns and sound waves and music.

As usual I was one of the official Solstice photographers as well as being a performer in the parade. This means that I can only capture the first half of the parade before I need to get ready to perform.

Here are my videos! Here are my many photos, arranged in different folders

As usual in recent years I performed on my unicycle with my dear friend Pali and his latest incredible inflatable creation: A huge multicolored dragon! It was based on a dragon he had created many years ago, but that one had fallen apart. This one was reborn from scratch with the addition of wings!

Here we posed with the dragon in the staging area before the parade.

There was plenty of action in the staging area. These folks from Cali-Forno Pizzeria showed off their pizza spinning skills and they also posed together with their pizza oven!

Teresa Kuskey rounded up and carefully trained a hundred dancers again this year for her extraordinary La Boheme Dance Group that kicked off the start of the parade. Lots of work goes into those costumes and into the synchronized performance. It is difficult to capture all 100 of them in a single photo! This is a merged panorama of many photos in order to show the scale of this extraordinary group!

Teresa is front and center in this photo, next to DJ Darla Bea.

Darla Bea kindly posed for me as well.

Here is my full gallery of my pre-parade photos.

And here was La Boheme in action as they led off the parade!

But before this official start was an ensemble of Tiny Art Cars. With skaters mixed in!

This next video is eight minutes long and captures at least a dozen ensembles.

First up is Grace Fisher and the Grace Fisher Foundation. At the age of 17 (December 2014), Grace faced a life-altering challenge when she was diagnosed with Acute Flaccid Myelitis, a rare polio-like illness, that left her paralyzed from the neck down.

“The Grace Fisher Foundation aims to create a more vibrant and inclusive society where the arts become a powerful tool for connection, understanding, and personal growth.”

Next were a lot of sharks along with Neptune and a mermaid and other sea characters.

Pirates were a sub-theme to go with the ocean theme. This one had lots of children in tow.

Artist in Residence Irene Ramirez was back this year, creating “Prickly-Neko”. A greeting cat that was also a cactus! Of course, the hand was waving to go with the Wave theme! A clever counter-weight mechanism like in a bell tower allowed the cat to wave with little effort.

And don’t miss my friend Phyllis Chiu as the traditional Japanese lucky cat “Maneki-neko” alongside the Prickly-Neko!

Ahead of Prickly-Neko the SK805 skater were dressed for a sea theme.

Solstice lost two stars far too young and far too soon this year. One was Kenji Jacklio Fukudome. Well known in the community as a superb photographer. Here he was honored by his friends with this camera float.

The other tragic loss was Dragon. He brought new energy to Solstice in recent years and here he posed with queen of the Mask Shop Emma-Jane. I took this photo a year ago. Sadly, Dragon was recently killed. Hit by a car on Los Carneros Road in Goleta. He is missed very much. There was a memorial float for him, too.

World Dance for Humanity filled the street with their joyous energy. World Dance raises an astonishingly large amount of money for good international causes. In recent years they have especially been helping the people of Ukraine. They welcome anyone and everyone to join in their group!

These small creations scattered throughout the parade are a highlight for me! This is Lisa Osborn.

Artist in Residence Diane Arnold was back again with a Wave themed ensemble called “Clap Hands”. She and Mary Williams animated the hands.

Polly and Emily Carey and family always come through to create something big, beautiful and imaginative each year. This year their Wave Rave presented a giant gramophone.

Laura Smith Birchhill was another star Artist in Residence for many years. She came back all the way from Minnesota to dance out in front of the Wave Rave!

Claudia Bratton was Solstice Executive Director for many years. Even though she officially retired, she still comes back each year to create a new ensemble. Yet another ocean themed float!

This float mystified me and I asked several in-the-know Solstice people for help. I got a variety of different answers! Here is what I know: It was created by Alberto Olivo Angel. Last year he created a puppet/float of a pregnant woman. This year we have the resulting babies! Rumor had it that it was related to a long-running Mexican comedy TV show where adults were dressed as babies. But the final word is that this was Alberto’s own original creation!

Here is my full gallery of my parade photos.

At this point I had to rush back to be in the parade with Pali and his Dragon ensemble. The full title was “Sundance of the Giant Water Dragon and His Creatures”. Pali captured this wonderful photo of me unicycling with his giant dragon at the very end of the parade. Don’t miss the shimmering trippy Wave design of my costume! I also had a long, flowing headdress that did its own Wave thing!

One of my favorite parts of Solstice in recent years? The aerialists and acro yoga performances in the park after the parade. Here I have edited a bunch of my video clips into this eight minute video of these wonderful performers. Don’t miss it!

Here are my many post-parade photos in the park that I don’t have space to share here.

With nearly 1,000 performers I am sorry I cannot share more photos here! Please look at the galleries of my photos to see more! Here you can see all of my Solstice photos from recent years. I will be adding more from this year in the coming days.

Most important of all: This is a community event where EVERYONE is welcome to participate! Come to the Workshop when it opens in May! Meet the artists! Get inspired to join an ensemble or to create one of your own!

And don’t worry that being in the parade means missing seeing it. You can still watch most of it even if you are in it! Mark your calendar for next May to come down to the Workshop and be a part of the Solstice Community!

– Robert Bernstein