"With just weeks to go before the Tournament of Roses Parade, the noise level - and stress level - were rising at a warehouse in the foothill town of Sierra Madre, just north of Pasadena. McKenzie is part of the small, core group of year-round volunteer float builders. As lead florist and project coordinator, her job is arguably one of the most important: overseeing the float's overall floral design and purchasing all of the flowers that will carpet its massive 53-foot long frame."
"On one end of the float, there's a 9-foot maple syrup bottle with a firehose attached to the top. On the other end, a butter dish the size of a Mini Cooper and a 9-foot stack of pancakes. McKenzie said the faux flapjacks will be sprayed in a flowered shower of faux pancake syrup."
""We do ours for like $50,000. And so, you use building techniques which are very efficient, (but) still have to hold up," Kulhavy explained. "[We] still have to get through the parade, still have to pass all the safety inspections. We get very lean on our materials to make it hold up well, but no extra," he said."
Volunteers in Sierra Madre work year-round to build a 53-foot floral float for the Tournament of Roses Parade under noisy, high-stress conditions. The lead florist and project coordinator oversees overall floral design and purchases the flowers that will carpet the float. The float features oversized pancake-breakfast imagery, including a 9-foot maple syrup bottle with a firehose, a Mini Cooper-sized butter dish, and a 9-foot stack of pancakes to be sprayed with a floral "syrup" of roses and mums. Builders balance aesthetic ambitions with efficient construction techniques, tight budgets (about $50,000) and mandatory safety inspections.
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