Vigilante Parade Route Update

Published on March 17, 2025

HELENA, Mont. – The following update was provided by City Manager Tim Burton regarding the Vigilante Parade.

I want to provide you with an update regarding the Vigilante Parade and safety concerns on the Walking Mall. The City’s public safety officials have been involved in positive discussions with Helena Public School District and have identified a path forward to keep the parade route as it has been, while implementing new safety measures to make the event as safe as possible.

As I stated last week, the primary concern from our Fire, Police, and Transportation Systems teams is that we maintain emergency vehicle access to the Walking Mall during an event like the parade. The size of parade vehicles and space limitations on the Walking Mall make it incredibly challenging to drive a fire engine or other large emergency vehicles to respond to an incident in the middle of the Walking Mall.

With that in mind, City staff have worked with the School District to implement the following public safety mitigation strategies for the parade:

• Limit vehicle and trailer size. Trucks larger than 1-ton pickups will not be allowed. Trailer deck length will be limited to 25 feet.
• Space vehicles on the Walking Mall. The City will provide staff to control the distance between vehicles as they enter the Walking Mall, to allow for more adequate space if an emergency response vehicle needs to enter the parade route.
• Intersection of 6th Avenue and Last Chance Gulch will be unobstructed. Crowd managers will ensure spectators don’t block the intersection.
• Barrier placement on the Walking Mall. Crowd managers will ensure barriers remain appropriately distanced apart throughout the Walking Mall.

We appreciate the School District’s commitment to working through the safety issues with the City and ensuring that the parade continues in its current format.

Moving forward, the City will continue the discussions that have been taking place for several years regarding improvements to the Special Event Permit process and event safety. These conversations include event organizers, the Downtown Business Improvement District (BID), and other key partners to ensure stakeholder representation.

Through these conversations the City has already developed a safety plan for events and crowd management training in partnership with the BID. We are also interested in establishing training for traffic control. The City will continue to utilize our partnership with the BID and our various parade organizers to support each other’s efforts.