DirecTV’s Rose Parade 2024 float is taking shape. See its ‘decorate by color’ phase
The 35-foot DirecTV Rose Parade float that will carry El Segundo’s Little League World Series champions on New Year’s Day is starting to show its colors.
This is the second in a photo series depicting the evolution of a Rose Parade float, from building the structure with steel, rebar and foam to the sweet-scented, fresh floral decor.
When we checked in at the Artistic Entertainment Services float building facility in Azusa last week, we were met with something that looked a little more like the finished product that will roll down 5.5 miles of Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard carrying the South Bay’s hometown heroes.
Heidi Hoff, marketing director with AES, said they call this phase of float building “decorate by color.”
This is when the paint and art department are fully involved in the process.
Large and small swaths of the float are painted with the color of the flowers that will grace its surface. This, said Hoff, serves a dual purpose. One: so that the supervisors and volunteers placing flowers know which color goes where. And, two: if by chance the fresh petals aren’t tightly enough packed, that you’re seeing on a color underneath, and no bare spots.
The next step for DirecTV’s “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” float is to have teams start to glue on dried materials such as nuts and seeds. At the back of the float, for example, to depict part of the black for the baseball stadium, workers will glue poppy seeds.
The dry goods, of course, don’t wilt or turn brown.
So the fresh flower placement is done as close to parade time as possible — floral decorating week: Dec. 26 to Dec. 31.
In a couple weeks, “Let’s Take Me Out to the Ballgame” will move in the middle of the night from its Azusa home to its new decorating home near Rose Bowl stadium.
And, our photographer will be there as DirecTV’s entry blooms with fresh white mums, pink and red roses, ti leaf, ferns, lilies, orchids and snapdragons.