WhozYourMama

Intention, Integrity, Connection: The Venice Electric Light Parade Story

• Michelle Kreft

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Sunset can feel like a reset button, and for us, it’s the moment a glowing stream of bikes turns Venice into a living neighborhood again. Marcus Gladney joins to share how the Venice Electric Light Parade grew from a late-night discovery into a decade-long, sober, family-friendly movement that brings hundreds of people together every Sunday. What started with wheel lights and a playlist became a lifeline for riders who needed connection, especially during lockdowns when Bicycle Bedtime Stories kept hope alive at dusk.

We dig into the origin story—from leaving successful businesses in Kansas City to finding belonging on the boardwalk—and why clear values like no alcohol, no smoking, and kid-first pacing are the guardrails that keep the ride safe and joyful. Marcus opens up about DMs that changed his perspective, personal rides with folks who were struggling, and the power of showing up consistently. We also explore how technology can be intentional and human: iFit brought the parade to Norditrack users worldwide, letting someone in Thailand ride along and message Marcus in real time. The ripple effects stretch from families and restaurants to brain health, proving that movement, music, and community can recalibrate a tough week.

Beyond the glow, there’s a philosophy: move with intention, protect integrity, and don’t be afraid of a redo. Marcus shares the choices behind collaborations he accepts—and those he declines—to keep the parade aligned with its mission. Kids who joined at four are now sixteen, and that arc is the true reward: routines that become roots, joy that becomes practice, and light that becomes legacy. If you’re craving connection, curious about building a values-led community, or just want a reason to look forward to Sundays, this one’s for you.

If this story sparks something, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review with the word that guides your week. Then meet us at sunset—let’s ride.

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Who's Your Mama, a podcast focusing on tomorrow's future, which are our kids, educators, teachers, parents, all-encompassing with the goal of understanding that our brain is a muscle that we can exercise to control the speed in the direction that we want. Let's go, y'all. The time is now. So, Marcus of the Venice Electric Light Parade, welcome to Who's Your Mama?

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for having me. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, we are happy to have you and uh so much we could share, but uh I'll try to be succinct because many people know you and uh there are certain areas that I I really want to focus on of why what you're doing with the Venice and have been doing with the Venice Electric like electric light parade. Say that five times it is a try it.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a tongue twister. I even still mess it up sometimes.

SPEAKER_00:

The Venice Electric Light Parade. And one of the areas that we share um between the two of us is our sense of community and making a difference, thinking outside of ourselves. So if you could just give a quick uh for people that maybe aren't familiar with the Venice Electric Light Parade, um what what inspired you to start it and what keeps you doing it? Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

So uh I created the Venice Electric Light Parade in 2015. Um Happy 10-year anniversary. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you. So the inspiration came from when I moved here from Kansas City in 2014. I moved with the then girlfriend who was a makeup artist. Uh, she wanted to come to LA back home. I owned a five-man carpet cleaning business and I had a couple of tow trucks. So I had businesses that were um fully functioning, right? Very successful. And she was a little bit younger and she wanted to move to LA. So I ended up um selling everything, moving out here.

SPEAKER_00:

That doesn't sound like very LA.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, everybody does it. Yeah, it's like it's like rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. But um, anyways, did that, um, came out here with her. Six months of being out here, you know, she realized that she didn't want to be here, so she went back home. So that left me in LA by myself, um, just kind of floating around to all the different neighborhoods um because rent was so expensive. And, you know, everything, you know, nothing really resonated with me but Venice Beach. And and because Venice was um uh there was so much going on in Venice, and it was free. All you needed to do was find a place to park, and you could just hang out at the beach. Um, ended up hanging out at the beach. Um, they always said that you want to not be at the beach during the day, whatever left the beach. I would leave the beach, leave the beach. Then um sunset, I it was one sunset. I said, I need to see what happens here at night. And that's when I noticed that everybody who's a local, they all had bicycle wheel lights, and they would flip these lights on. And so now you just got all these bicycles just crisscrossing one another with these colorful lights. It was magic.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's what that's the magic that sparked that within you to see the vision.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, what happened is I ended up buying a bike the next day. Wow, and I asked one of the locals, hey, where do you get these lights from? Just like everybody asked. He said, Oh, it's a guy that comes to the beach, his name is Sebastian the Light Man. He doesn't have a shop, he just sets up an event. I said, Oh, okay. So it took me about two weeks. I finally met him, told him the story, where I was from and what happened. Him and I ended up becoming really good friends, and then he took me on as like his apprentice. And so I would just hang out and help him do bicycle lights. And what I saw was even though everybody had these bicycle wheel lights, there was still there still wasn't a sense of community because everybody did their own thing. They would get the wheel lights and then they would go this direction and then go that direction.

SPEAKER_00:

Isn't that just a metaphor for life? Pretty much.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, pretty much. Everybody's, you know, there, they they were all uh, you know, on their on their own path. And so what happened is I saw that as an opportunity to add more lights to my bike, and I would just ride around, you know, playing music, people would follow, and from that gave me the inspiration to create the electric light parade.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's an incredible journey. And I think so many people can relate that to different parts of their life of the journey, the different path.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Less ridden, travel, so to speak. So then take us into now, I mean, to be able to sustain any uh business or commitment things in life, a decade is a very, very long time. And to be able to do that, because that also included the period of time of proper shutdown of the pandemic. Right. So, you know, let's discuss further about what continued to motivate you to do that. Because I've watched it grow and grow and grow and and your commitment to do every Sunday at sunset.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then specifically during that period of time, what why and then what did you get? And you've seen people get out of it that motivates you to keep this continuous commitment.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So um what keeps me going is the people. I mean, the DMs that I get, the thank yous, um, the stories of of of during the pandemic, how um people were ready to pretty much end it because you know they didn't know what was going on. Um there was there was probably about a dozen people that I would that I actually had to go and just do a little personal bicycle ride with them in their in their neighborhood. Um yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was very heartwarming just because they weren't doing well. Yeah. Okay. And so during the pandemic, what I did was um to to keep people engaged and to and to let them know that, hey, we're still Sundays at sunset, we're still, even though we're not riding bicycles, we're still gonna do something. And so I started doing bicycle bedtime stories. So if you remember during the pandemic, you could, I mean, that's when Amazon really, really, really took off. And I ordered about 30 bicycle, um, well, children's books that involved bicycles. And so what I would do at sunset on a Sunday, because you know, the beaches were closed and we we weren't riding, I would just go live on Facebook and I would read uh uh a children's book, and I called it Bicycle Bedtime Stories. So that actually helped a lot of people, you know. A lot I I think the most one time I had like 600 people logged on, you know, uh watching that, watching me read um a story. So um power of connection, definitely, and so like now um it's all so integrity, intention, all of those um are are are um keywords and and things that I've incorporated in myself to make sure that I show up every Sunday because what fuels me is seeing how many people show up. Like last Sunday, it was like almost 200 people. And so and and people come in from all over, you know. Um it was a a couple there from Vegas last week that just drove in to do the bicycle parade.

SPEAKER_00:

And you've had people that have heard about you through things like correct me if I'm wrong, uh trip advisor, play, you know, things to do. So when you're in LA, yes, and that all that being said, uh you know, knowing and watching you do all this, you don't do it for the notoriety, like the investment of making a difference, which gives to you and gives to others. Um and so I know it's been around, you're being very modest, but it has been people around the world.

SPEAKER_01:

You are so one of the one of the things that that that that I'm proud of um is that the bicycle parade is on all the NordaTrack workout equipment. So if you know Norditrack has a program called iFit, and that's an interactive type of software to where you can punch in and you can say, Hey, I want to go jogging at some volcanic mountain in Hawaii, and it'll take you there, and the machine will actually um increase. If you're on a if you're on a stair mount, uh I'm sorry, if you're on a treadmill or if you're on a stationary bike, the resistance will get harder if the program senses that you're going up a mountain, up hill, it'll get harder. So, what happened was um those guys called, and I think they're out of Utah. They came down and they said, Hey, apparently your bicycle parade is something that people are requesting to put on our, you know, within our software, and you know what does it take for us to send the film crew down because we want to feature the Venice Electric Light Parade on our workout equipment. So here's the thing with that program, it's interactive. So if you're on your stationary bike in Thailand and you're doing my event and and on on the program, you can send me a D you can DM me real time for more information. And so I get people that DM me from that platform that says, Hey, we do your bike parade on our uh equipment at home. We're gonna be in LA and we want to do it real time.

SPEAKER_00:

So and I think that's what you know, and this is a bigger conversation, not for now, or and maybe not at all between you and us, but but we both have discussed about technology and and AI and things like that, and fears of those things. But there are huge ways to use technology just like social media in a mindful, integrity-based, intentional way. Right. So this is an example of it of how to connect people for something like that. And and you're reaching people sometimes without you even realizing you are. And and so with that in mind, um, what would you say has been some of the biggest changes? Because I know you've been very mindful and make it clear to people that come on the ride, do whatever you want to do afterwards, understand that you don't have to have kids or have a family to be partake in the ride. But what you're not gonna partake is is in extracurriculars being like alcohol, things like that. Yeah, it is a kid and family friendly, whether you have that or not. But here's an absolute no.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

So, with all that being said, what would you say you have seen how that's impacted families, uh restaurants, um, and also from a brain health is life health standpoint, how have you seen that change over the years?

SPEAKER_01:

So I've always been pretty, and you know, and I've kind of gotten uh kind of a little rigid name uh in in the Viking community, if you if you will, about uh us being pretty stern on the no drinking, no smoking, sober family event. Because in the very beginning, you know, that's what helped um me and the crew get around certain uh having to pull permits, LAPD, you know, because they knew that you were safe and they didn't have to monitor. They knew that we were sober kid friendly, you know, and in the very beginning they had a problem with us holding up lights and everything, and so there's no law of the land that trumps a kid on a bicycle. So once that was implemented, and of course, the no drinking, no smoking, and then once we made the children like the primary focus of the bike rate, because that's really what it is. All the tech everybody knows when kids people with kids they ride up next to me because the children they got the pace, they they're the they're the pace, yeah, they're the pace of the bicycle.

SPEAKER_00:

And isn't that again a part of one of the reasons I started who's your mama is because they are future, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

No, yeah, I'm telling you, I got so again, so I started this in 2015, here we are, 2026. So you can only imagine that there's kids that are now 16 and 17 who come to the bike parade that 10 years ago when they came and they were only like four or five, you know, I've seen them grow up. So all of that is what fuels me. Um, you know, but that's that's really what makes me tick because people ask me all the time, how do you make money? Well, you know, we're a nonprofit and people donate. Um, you know, when when we do these special collabor uh colla collaborations with, you know, um these fortune 500 companies, you know, that helps pay some bills. But you know, overall, you know, it's all about the community. I'm all I'm all I like to see, I like to pull up and see old faces and new faces and people who are smiling ear to ear and thanking me with intention for creating this space for the community.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and sometimes maybe not, but gradually going because someone told them, hey, we're doing this, and then lights up their yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

There's been a bunch of people who have who are you know, the friends are like, hey, we're gonna do this. Yeah, and then they're kind of you know, like, okay, didn't really know what to expect. But then at the end, they're like, best thing happening in LA.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is. It's really magical. Well, the last thing I wanted to ask you was, and there's you can answer it, you know, as specific or broad as you want. With all of your experience just in life, what are two or three things you would tell your younger self?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, um, based on what I've what I've done in my um my younger self, I would definitely, you know, start with the uh there's first thing, you know, there's there's there's there's redo's, you know, if you mess up, you can always redo, you know. Um younger self continue to put God first. That's that's really first and foremost. I would definitely, you know, always remind my younger self for that. And just the third thing is just move with intention. Everything, you know, in life is is with intention. I I and I use that word a lot, you know. Um when I'm talking to you know my boys or if I'm talking to friends and family, I just always remind everybody move with intention and integrity. You know, very important.

SPEAKER_00:

I couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_01:

Very important.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think it's good to reflect on that. And I it's things I talked to my daughter about um because said no adult ever. Uh I I wish I would have learned some of these lessons later in life, but we're never too old to grow.

SPEAKER_01:

Never too old.

SPEAKER_00:

And and then passing those things along to younger generation. Yeah, and they have things to teach us as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00:

So you continue to watch you, it's such a gift to grow and what you're doing for the community and inspiring others, including myself. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

You're welcome. And thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

Um maybe we uh you'd be open to coming back on here again because I know you have a lot to share.

SPEAKER_01:

Of course, of course. Thanks, things. There's so much going on. Um, you know, I get emails every every every day. There's an email, you know, somebody wants to do a music video, you know, if the music video, if the lyrics are within uh, you know, if something if if it if it flows with what what I've created and what the intention of the bike parade is, I'm all for it. There's been a uh uh a bunch of them that I had to decline, but you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh, I I got a uh it sounds like I got I I was on prime time. So thank you for uh making space. Yeah, for sure. We all do make time and space for people and things that we want in live, and there's no doubt. So thank you again for coming on Who's Your Mark? Uh on your markets, who's your Who's Your Mark is your on Who's Your Mama? Your mama I guess we've been using Electric Light Parade. And as we sign off, uh let's go, y'all. The time is now. Thank you for tuning in to Who's Your Mama? And I look forward to collaborating from a community standpoint for the next episodes.

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Michelle Kreft

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