In spite of the wide application potential of 1,2,4,5-tetrazines, particularly in live-cell and in-vivo imaging, a major limitation has been the lack of practical synthetic methods. Here we report the in situ synthesis of (E)-3-substituted-6-alkenyl-1,2,4,5-tetrazine derivatives via an elimination-Heck cascade reaction. Using this strategy, we provide 24 examples of π-conjugated tetrazine derivatives that can be conveniently prepared from tetrazine building blocks and related halides. These include tetrazine analogs of biological small molecules, highly conjugated buta-1,3-diene substituted tetrazines, and a diverse array of fluorescent probes suitable for live-cell imaging. These highly conjugated probes show dramatic fluorescent turn-on (up to 400-fold) when reacted with dienophiles such as cyclopropenes and trans-cyclooctenes, and we demonstrate their application for live-cell imaging. This work provides an efficient and practical synthetic methodology for tetrazine derivatives and will facilitate the application of conjugated tetrazines, particularly as fluorogenic probes for live-cell imaging.