Joel Wauters, member of The Panther Marching Band at the University of Northern Iowa and Union High School Alum, will be appearing in London’s New Year’s Day Parade. The Panther Marching Band has been invited to perform in the 2015 London New Year’s Day Parade with over 200 University of Northern Iowa students marching, led by Dr. Danny Galyen. The band will be performing favorite tunes such as Fireball by Pitball, Happy by Pharrell Williams, Problem by Ariana Grande, and Wild Wild Love by Pitbull. The Panther Marching Band departs December 24th and will stay seven days in London with sites including Hampton Court, Tower of London, Stonehenge, Bath, among others.

London’s New Year’s Day Parade is supported by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and boasts a list of active patrons and supporters including the Lord Lieutenant of Greater London, The Prime Minister of Great Britain and the Lord Mayor of the City of Westminster. The New Year’s Day Parade is the largest event of its kind on the world with over 8000 participants performing for a street audience of well over half a million people and a worldwide television audience approaching three hundred million.

The first New Year’s Day Parade in London was on January 1st 1987, and it was called ‘The Lord Mayor of Westminster’s Big Parade’. The event featured about 2,000 performers, mostly marching bands, and meandered its way from Berkeley Street to Portland Place via Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street, and Oxfords Circus. London had not seen anything like it before, and did not really quite know what to make of it. By 1994 the Parade had become so big, so important, and so popular to London that the City of Westminster gave up sole ownership of the event, and it became truly ‘London’s New Year’s Day Parade and Festival’ with all of London’s Boroughs taking an active role in the event.

London’s New Year’s Day Parade’ now regularly attracts a worldwide TV audience, a terrific audience on the streets of London, and boasts twice as many participants as Macy’s in New York City on Thanksgiving Day! IPTV will be airing the Parade, please check your local listings for additional information.