Building the Floats

How does Phoenix Decorating Co. make these elements come together to become majestic Rose Parade floats? They accomplish this tremendous task through the tireless efforts of a handful of talented staff members and the dedicated energy provided by over 16,000 volunteer decorators. Decorators come from throughout the country to decorate floats, drawn from a variety of organizations. They come from the Kiwanis Clubs, from the Donate Life organ donor organizations and the Petal Pushers®, which is a unique group created specifically to decorate Rose Parade floats.

These thousands of volunteers start early in December with dry materials – seeds, beans, rice, bark, corn husks, spices and scores of other items that won’t quickly wilt – then, starting on Dec. 26, add almost every fresh flower you can think of (and a few which might never occur to the average gardener or even to a professional florist), until every single square inch of the gigantic floats is covered with organic material as required by the Tournament of Roses Association.

How much time is required to decorate a float? That’s a hard question to answer, since annually floats vary from 35 to some 100 feet long, from 17 to more than 50 feet tall. From 10,000 to 15,000 hours are needed just to glue on all of the dry materials and flowers – and that’s only the decorators. There are hundreds of additional individuals working in the "flower tents" counting and preparing flowers for the decorators, the scaffolding crew wrapping and rewrapping each float in a maze of ladders and planks which provide decorators access to all areas of the titanic metal sculptures, a crew chief and assistant crew chief for each float, and the floral director guiding the decoration of all floats.

And then there’s the seven-person "detail crew," which works throughout the month of December on "fine" decoration, such as sculpted faces, hands and those ever so cute animals.

So 20,000 hours can very realistically be required to decorate one "average float." (Don’t even ask about the six to eight weeks it takes to construct a float which is accented with sound system and complex animation!)

. . . AND QUITE OFTEN THE BEAUTY
IS FOUND IN THE DETAILS

Headed by designer Michelle Lofthouse and Art Department chief Cynthia McMinimy, the highly specialized detail crew annually works nearly around the clock for a week providing the fine details which are a hallmark of Phoenix-built floats. They concentrate heavily on humans – faces and hands – floragraphs and the menagerie of animals which populate the floats Phoenix creates for each Rose Parade.

How does the detail crew achieve the incredible effects which contribute so heavily to the memorable quality of the floats? "For human skin we use a combination of farina, cinnamon, curry, dry mustard, chili powder, paprika – and a few secret ingredients," Cynthia explains. "The formula varies depending on the specific complexion we want," she adds. And for some of those incredible animals? Pampas grass, hyacinth root, corn silk, dehydrated vegetables, cordome puffs – and for grizzly bears and bison, it’s a base of hand-combed palm fiber. Each year the crew members make new discoveries to meet an ever evolving set of challenges. When a float featured giant polar bears, Michelle discovered that powdered onion seed provided the effect of the bears’ black skin peeking through pure white coats around their eyes and noses. A realistic look which made the float a favorite of the crowd as well as Tournament judges. While thousands of volunteer decorators wield large, glue-filled brushes, pasting on millions of petals and full flowers, the detail crew generally utilizes small sponges, cans of spray adhesive and decorating elements so delicate they’re often blown onto the float out of the palm of their hands.

Even with floats that can be as tall as a six-story building, the beauty often is in the details, the crew members emphasize.