This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. Part of the Trader Joe’s float featuring singing broccoli. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. A detail of the Newport Beach Float, “Jingle on the Waves.” (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. Part of the “Serving in Harmony” float. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. A Phoenix worker walks past the Newport Beach Float, “Jingle on the Waves.” (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
This coming Saturday, volunteers will begin dry decorating Rose Parade floats at Phoenix Decorating in Irwindale. Many of the 18 floats are being prepared for decorating on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. Rachel Lofthouse works on part of the Newport Beach Float, “Jingle on the Waves.” (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG
If the Rose Parade were today, you’d see several skeleton-framed, bare-boned wheeled structures making their away down the route. The floats would not be pretty. They would not be, well, rosy.
Thankfully, the staggered process of decorating the floats has begun, and will kick into high gear in large-scale fashion this weekend, as the major float decorators kick their “dry decoration” period into high gear.
Keep in mind, this isn’t the placing of the flowers on floats, but rather, it’s the placing of natural materials that aren’t flowers: Bark. Seeds. Powders. Strawflour … stuff like that.
The actual flower decorations – the roses – comes in the couple of days before Jan. 1.
In the meantime, if you’ve ever wanted to help decorate a float, you can start – now.
Take Phoenix Decorating Co. in Irwindale, for instance – a longtime float builder for the parade. Their 18 floats are now ready for dry decoration, which will begin Saturday at their Irwindale hub and continue on following Saturdays up to Dec. 23.
Just bring a dose of commitment in that daypack: Volunteers work in morning and afternoon shifts. There’s breaks for lunch.
The big three decorators – Phoenix, Fiesta Parade Floats (both out of Irwindale) and Artistic Entertainment Services (AES – based in Azusa but decorates in Pasadena), are on slightly different timelines, though the concept is pretty much the same: Get the dry decorating done in the weeks leading up to the parade, and then those last few days are basically petal to the metal with the floral decorations – (Get it? petal?).
Some have already begun their dry decoration process, but all can use more volunteers. You’d be joining quite a tradition. It includes thousands of people who spend their spare December time decorating floats, from service clubs to individual residents just out to make their mark on a parade that reaches tens of millions of people across the world.
Phoenix Decorations is looking to have at least 3,000 volunteers on Saturday.
To find out more, here are some helpful websites, if you’re interested in dry decorating Rose floats.
Note, too, that some cities and other organizations also decorate their own floats in their own locales. Check in with them for more information. Among them are:
