Muskegon County, MI Special Events & Permits: Parade Permits (2026)

Under Section 18 of the Muskegon County Parks Ordinance (adopted June 14, 2022), no person on County Park Property may engage in organized activities, including parades, contests, shows, exhibitions, organized sporting or musical events, or children's day camps, that exclude other park users, without first obtaining prior written consent from the County or its Designee. The rule sits inside the ordinance's broader Organized Activities, Sports, Games and Hobbies section, which also separately requires written permission for remote-controlled devices (Section 18(1)(c)), hot air balloons, parachutes and hang gliders (Section 18(1)(d)), and restricts sledding, skating and skiing to designated areas (Section 18(1)(e)).

A group planning a parade route or staging area inside a County park, such as Pioneer County Park, Duck Lake State Park-adjacent county land, or the Muskegon County Wastewater lakefront properties, must apply to the County or its Designee before the event and secure written approval; the ordinance does not set a specific fee or lead time for that consent, leaving the terms to be worked out with parks staff. Once consent is granted, Section 19's rental protections apply: the permit holder can exclude other users from the reserved area, and anyone who hinders, interrupts or interferes with a permitted use is separately in violation.

This is a park-property-specific consent requirement, not a county-wide parade or street-closure permit ordinance; parades on public roads outside county parks fall under the relevant municipality's own permit process.