‘Camels Aren’t Props’: PETA’s Times Square Message Targets Radio City’s Spectacular Cruelty

For Immediate Release:
October 2, 2026

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

A giant camel towering over Times Square is waiting to see whether Radio City Music Hall will be naughty or nice this holiday season. The sky-high appeal from PETA is urging the venue to leave animals out of its Christmas Spectacular, which uses live camels, sheep, and donkeys in its Nativity scene, subjecting them to disorienting lights and loud music. When they’re not being forced to perform, the animals are confined backstage—with some reportedly kept in the basement—during the show’s months-long run every winter.

“Camels, sheep, and donkeys are thinking, feeling beings, but in Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular, they’re treated like living props and denied any bit of comfort and joy,” says PETA President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Radio City Music Hall to share good tidings with its audience this year by keeping animals out of its show.”

PETA notes that many of New York’s most successful productions—including Broadway’s The Lion King—use brilliant puppetry and stagecraft to portray animals without putting any on stage. Earlier this year, PETA also purchased stock in Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp., Radio City Music Hall’s parent company, to press directors and shareholders to end the use of live animals in the show. Nearly 40,000 PETA supporters have called on Chase, Lexus, and Verizon to stop sponsoring the Christmas Spectacular until its animal acts are banned.

Camels are social animals who express their feelings with groans, moans, and roars; donkeys can recognize the faces of animals they haven’t seen for years; and sheep’s heart rates increase when they can’t find their family or are approached by strangers. Animals used in live Nativities face a constant barrage of activity and unwanted touches and are often tethered and made to stand on hard surfaces for hours. Their handlers commonly threaten and intimidate them—many use abusive tools to make them obey commands out of fear of physical punishment.

PETA’s billboard is located at 1500 Broadway in Times Square.

PETA encourages everyone to urge Radio City Music Hall to let animals live in peace by leaving them out of future Christmas Spectacular performances.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.