Behind the Scenes with The Rose Parade, Part 1

Submitted by Laurel Hollopeter AIFD, CFD, IMF

Holidays come and holidays go, the calendar has flipped to December and yet another holiday to look forward to. However there is yet another holiday season in the land of a floral design artist. 

The season has begun for Rose Parade Floats to come to life.  The making of a Rose Parade Float is a year round activity for float companies and builders of the industry. Sketches, drawings, small scale models and the like, are done to make each float more spectacular than the year before. However, we all know that the “Beauty” of fresh flowers and art pieces that are made by many talented floral design artists is what makes the floats stand out the most. And those pieces, they are all made in less than one weeks’ time! Many of these talented designers are members of our AIFD/CFD flower family. 

Phoenix Float Decorating and the Fiesta Float Company are the premier float design companies.  I have had the opportunity to work for both. When you walk into the large warehouse buildings and see, first-hand, the large nothing but metal and iron structures, it is mind boggling. It makes you wonder how, in just a few days, we will crawl all over these structures and create until we make the most outstanding designs. Well I must say that we might even stay up all night on December 30 just to make sure we have crossed our T’s and dotted our I’s. Everything must be beautiful and perfectly designed!

Decoration week is a week that everyone involved looks forward to all year long. Floral designers travel from across the country to California by air and car to arrive in time to begin the week of decorating. December 26 is what we call “travel day” as we are required to be on sight by December 27.  Lead designers do a “walk-through” of the float and learn important aspects of design and mechanical aspects of the float.  During the first day, the teams prepare containers, process flowers and make sure all items have arrived, and check on the expected arrival date of the items that are missing. This decorating season will be a new experience for the design teams with the shortage of flowers, but as we all know, we will adapt and be prepared to handle what we are given. 

Judging of the floats are done in a two-step process.  The judging team arrives and will judge floats as they are under construction.  The only people allowed on the floats during the first judging are the design team, you must be working on the float and not talk with the judges.  (There are many times we, as floral designers, might know at least one or two of the parade judges, as most often some are in the industry).

The final judging of the floats are done on New Year’s Eve day as the floats coming to life with dancers, walkers, riders and theme music for each float.  Lots of clapping, noise and all the fun that goes into making the judges want to give your float a supurb rating.  Awards are then announced at 6am in front of the Tournament House.  The designers are all huddled together waiting for that big announcement to see how many your team won. 

The experience of helping to work on floats is an amazing opportunity for designers.  I can say the very first time I worked for team Fiesta I was beyond welcomed as a member of the team.  And it was a wonderful surprise to find myself in California, and to hear my name being called by my extended AIFD family.  As we all know in the world of floral design we, are one big happy family! Each year now we can’t wait to join forces for a week to create, celebrate and learn from our extended AIFD design team. For those who wish to follow the making of a “Rose Parade Float”, follow me on Facebook as I post daily. At times I’ve been “known” to go Facebook Live to bring you all to California and see how things are going in the barns!  I look forward to being able to bring you the 2022 Rose Parade, “Dream, Believe, Achieve”