 The cost of tickets to the pageant and carnival meant that relatively impoverished Chinese American families could only afford to attend the crowded parade, in effect excluding those whose heritage the Festival was meant to celebrate.The 1977 Parade included a wedding procession in an attempt to introduce more "authentic" cultural content; this was the brainchild of organizer David Lei, newly hired that year by the San Francisco Convention and Visitor's Bureau, which had become a co-sponsor in 1963.In 1981, an estimated crowd of 250,000 watched the parade.