Rose Parade, also known as the Tournament of Roses Parade (or simply the Tournament of Roses),

11 min readDec 2, 2021

The Rose Parade, also known as the Tournament of Roses Parade (or simply the Tournament of Roses), is an annual parade to mark the start of the Rose Bowl Game, held mostly along Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, on New Year’s Day (or on Monday, January 2 if New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday). Produced by the non-profit Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association, the parade usually starts at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC–8), and includes flower-covered floats, marching bands, and equestrian units. The parade is followed in the afternoon by the Rose Bowl, one of the major bowl games in college football. It has been uninterrupted except during World War II in 1942, 1943, and 1945, and in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1] The parade is expected to resume in 2022.[2][3]

First held on January 1, 1890, the Rose Parade is watched by hundreds of thousands of spectators.[4][5] The Rose Bowl college football game was added in 1902 to help fund the cost of staging the parade.[6] Since 2011, Honda has been a presenting sponsor of the Rose Parade.[7] Accordingly, the company has the parade’s first float, which like all floats, follows the parade’s theme.

1History
2Parade
2.1Recent parades
3Floats
4Equestrians
5Bands
6Rose Parade Theme
7Grand Marshal
8Rose Queen and Royal Court
9Attendance
10Broadcast
11Volunteers
11.1Leadership
11.2Operations and the parade
12Weather
13Related events
14Notes
15References
16External links

History[edit]

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Members of Pasadena’s Valley Hunt Club first staged the parade in 1890. Since then the parade has been held in Pasadena every New Year’s Day, except when January 1 falls on a Sunday. In that case, it is held on the subsequent Monday, January 2. This exception was instituted in 1893, as organizers did not wish to disturb horses hitched outside Sunday church services.[8]

Many of the members of the Valley Hunt Club were former residents of the American East and Midwest. They wished to showcase their new California home’s mild winter weather. At a club meeting, Professor Charles F. Holder announced, “In New York, people are buried in the snow. Here our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let’s hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise.”

So the club organized horse-drawn carriages covered in flowers, followed by foot races, polo matches, and a game of tug-of-war on the town lot that attracted a crowd of 2,000 to the event. Upon seeing the scores of flowers on display, the professor decided to suggest the name “Tournament of Roses.”

A Chariot Race during the 1908 or 1911 Tournament of Roses; later replaced by the Rose Bowl Game

Over the next few founding years, the parade added marching bands and motorized floats. By 1895, the event was too large for the Valley Hunt Club to handle, resulting in the formation of an ad hoc non-profit organization — the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association. By the 11th annual tournament (1900), the town lot on which the activities were held was renamed Tournament Park, a large open area directly adjacent to Pasadena’s world-famous institution of higher learning, Caltech. Activities soon included ostrich races, bronco busting demonstrations, and an odd novelty race between a camel and an elephant. (The elephant won the race.) Soon reviewing stands were built along the parade route and newspapers in Eastern Seaboard cities started to take notice of the event.

Tournament House, also known as the Wrigley mansion

The stately Italian Renaissance-style mansion of William Wrigley Jr. (the maker of Wrigley’s chewing gum) was offered to the city of Pasadena after Mrs. Wrigley’s death in 1958, under the condition that their home would be the Rose Parade’s permanent headquarters. Tournament House is the name given to the former home where the organization is headquartered.[9]

The first associated football game was played on January 1, 1902. Originally titled the “Tournament East-West football game,” it is considered to be the first Rose Bowl. The next game was not played until New Year’s Day 1916; they have been played annually since then. The game derives its modern name from Rose Bowl Stadium, which was built for the 1923 game.

In 2002 and 2006 (when the Rose Bowl Game was the BCS National Championship Game), the “Granddaddy of ’em all” was not held the same day as the parade; the 2002 game was played on January 3, the 2006 game was played on January 4. Not all fans were pleased with the change; some thought the atmosphere and tradition of the Rose Bowl was lost. Once the BCS title game was separated from the host bowl, it no longer affected the date of the Rose Bowl Game (even when the title game returned to Pasadena in 2010 and 2014).

On July 15, 2020, it was announced that the Rose Parade for 2021 would be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it was assessed under current conditions that the construction of floats for the parade could not be performed in a safe manner, while the event itself (due to large crowds and outside visitors) was also considered to be at a high risk of causing more instances of COVID-19 infections.[10] The 128th parade was deferred to 2022. Preparations are underway for the 2022 parade.[2]

On November 13, 2020, it was announced that a TV special titled The Rose Parade’s New Year’s Celebration will take the parade’s place and premiere on January 1, 2021.[11]

Parade[edit]

A close-up of roses used to create a parade float

The Tournament of Roses Parade has followed the same route mainly following Colorado Boulevard (Pasadena’s main thoroughfare and a segment of the former US 66) for many decades. The day before the parade, the entire environs of the neighborhood streets south of the intersection of Orange Grove Boulevard and Colorado Boulevard are sealed off and reserved for the marshaling of the dozens of floats, bands, equestrian units, and other elements. This sealed-off section acts as the “Formation Area”, and the Formation Area Committee manages it.

On parade morning the various elements are merged and dispatched in front of Tournament House. The parade starts heading north on South Orange Grove Boulevard beginning at Green Street. At Colorado Boulevard it passes the main grandstands (and the main television and media stands) and proceeds east on Colorado Boulevard. The parade then turns north on Sierra Madre Boulevard.[12] The floats then must travel under the Sierra Madre Boulevard/I-210 freeway overpass, requiring over-height floats to reduce their height. The parade ends at Paloma Street near Victory Park and Pasadena High School. Floats continue into the Post-Parade viewing area (which is open that afternoon and the following day). In total this route is 5.5 miles (8.9 km) long; the assembled bands, horse units, and floats take approximately two hours to pass by.

Recent parades[edit]

The 2009 parade featured 46 floats, including some new entries, such as Jack in the Box’s Jack-O-Licious, City of Mission Viejo’s Making a Splash, RFD-TV’s Hee Haw, and the City of Roseville’s Entertaining Dreams for a Century.

The 2010 parade saluted the men and women serving America throughout the world with a flyover at the beginning of the parade by four F/A-18 jets (performed by pilots of Strike Fighter Squadron 22, the “Fighting Redcocks”) from the Naval Air Station at Lemoore, California).

New floats that joined the 2011 Rose Parade were: Beverly Hills Tournament of Roses Committee, Cunard Line, Dole, Los Angeles County Firemen’s Benefit & Welfare: Never Forget 9/11 “Remember, Reflect, Renew”, UNO 40th Anniversary, “Messina Wildlife Management”, Namco Bandai Games, “Quikrete” Cement & Concrete Products, “Saving America’s Mustangs Foundation”, and Shriner’s Hospitals For Children.

The 2012 Rose Parade had 43 floats, 21 bands, and 18 equestrian units with approximately 400 horses. The honor for being the last units in the parade went to All American Cowgirl Chicks (Equestrian), Needham Broughton High School (Band), and RFD-TV (Float). It also featured the first-ever Swedish entry, the Royal Swedish Navy Cadet Band.

The 2013 parade featured 42 floats, 23 marching bands, and 21 equestrian units. New for the 2013 Rose Parade were floats from Nurses’ float “A Healing Place”, Delta Sigma Theta, and the city of San Gabriel centennial float “Celebrating Our Journey”. It began with the Wells Fargo/Opening Unit, American Honda’s float, the United States Marine Corps’s Mounted Color Guard and the U.S. Marine Corps West Coast Composite Band. Farmers Insurance’s “Love Float” featured the wedding of a Virginia couple, Nicole and Gerald of Chesapeake, VA, which was officiated by nationally syndicated radio personality Sean Valentine. The couple was selected through a first-ever public vote by the American people. The parade’s closing unit featured Coco Jones of the Disney Channel.

Featured in the 2014 parade were 45 floats, including new floats from eHarmony, K9s4COPS, Public Storage (“Adventures In Space”)[13] and SeaWorld. Actor, director, writer, producer Garry Marshall played the role of “director” on Burbank’s “Lights…camera…action!” float. KC and the Sunshine Band were featured on Stella Rosa Wine’s “Stellabrate Good Times” float. Performing on the e-Harmony float was Natalie Cole, singing “This Will Be”. NBC’s The Voice joined this parade too, along with Daryl Hall and the Harlem Globetrotters. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation float (“Living the Dream: Love Is the Best Protection”) featured a wedding of a California couple, Aubrey Loots and Danny Leclair; some people called for a boycott of the parade as the couple are actually both men.[14] Nancy O’Dell, along with Jonathan and Drew Scott (of the Property Brothers) co-hosted the parade.[15]

The 2015 parade had 41 floats. New participants were ABC’s The Bachelor, American Armenian Rose Float Association, Kiehl’s Since 1851, Northwestern Mutual, United Sikh Mission, and Zappos.com.

The 2016 parade featured 44 floats, 19 equestrian units, and 20 marching bands. New participants were Los Angeles Lakers, City of Irvine Chamber of Commerce, South Dakota Tourism, the California Milk Advisory Board, PBS (featuring Downton Abbey), and Union Bank. It marked the end of Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards’s participation in the parade for local television station KTLA. Singpoli Group’s float “Marco Polo East Meets West”, constructed by float builder Paradiso was judged as the sweepstakes winner, the “Most beautiful entry in the Parade with outstanding floral presentation and design.”[16]

The 2020 Rose Parade featured 40 floats, 17 equestrian units with over 450 horses, and 20 marching bands. The Co-Grand Marshals of the parade were gymnast Laurie Hernández, actress and singer Rita Moreno, and actress Gina Torres.[17]

The 2022 parade will feature 18 equestrian units, 22 marching bands, and a number of floats to be announced. The grand marshal is actor LeVar Burton.

Rose Parade, also known as the Tournament of Roses Parade (or simply the Tournament of Roses),

Contents

History[edit]

Parade[edit]

Recent parades[edit]

Written by Caxec