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Float Decorating

The Rose Parade's elaborate floats have come a long way since the Tournament's early days. Today, float building is a multi-million dollar business. Although a few floats are built solely by volunteers from their sponsoring communities, most are built by professional float building companies.

Decorating a Float

Float construction begins shortly after the previous year's Parade is over. The process starts with a specially built chassis, upon which is built a framework of steel and chicken wire. In a process called "cocooning", the frame is sprayed with a polyvinyl material, which is then painted in the colors of the flowers to be applied later. Every inch of the float must be covered with flowers or other natural materials, such as leaves, seeds, or bark. Volunteer workers swarm over the floats in the days after Christmas, their hand and clothes covered with glue and petals. The most delicate flowers are placed in individual vials of water, which are set into the float one by one.

Building a Rose Parade Float

Computerized animation has had an enormous impact on Rose Parade floats. Recent Parade floats have featured working roller coasters, a 50-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty, a robotic chef with moving arms, a working water slide and more, all controlled by computers. But through all the changes, the Rose Parade has remained true to its floral beginnings, and each float is decorated with more flowers than the average florist will use in five years.