PASADENA, Calif. — Millions of people around the world are expected to watch the 136th Rose Parade on New Year's Day as the annual floral extravaganza celebrates the theme "Best Day Ever!"
Preparations have been underway for months and, on Monday, a melange of floral scents wafted through the air as hundreds of volunteers buzzed around the Phoenix Decorating Company warehouse east of Los Angeles.
Inside, volunteers crawled on hands and knees or climbed scaffolding to add the finishing touches to the 17 floats at the facility. Many focused on inserting individual flowers into small tubes filled with water and then neatly placing each vial, one by one, onto the floats.
“It’s the calm before the storm,” said Chuck Hayes, who handles sponsor relations at the Phoenix Decorating Company.
Hayes could hardly finish answering one question before being asked another by a staff member or volunteer, or being whisked away to address an urgent matter. Nearby, a young man atop a float warned he had found a leaf bug while his colleague hurried to inspect the piece.
More than 800,000 people from across the country line up to see the spectacle every year, and millions more watch from home. NBC will broadcast the Rose Parade for the 98th year at 11 a.m. ET. The New Year’s Day tradition will also stream on Peacock.
One of the most anticipated floats this year will pay tribute to the hit musical "Wicked" released earlier this year by Universal Pictures. (Comcast owns Universal and NBC News.)
The massive undertaking includes some 32 floats — all made from organic material — 20 marching bands and 16 equestrian groups.
This year’s theme is intended to showcase “life’s best moments,” parade officials said.
“Together, we celebrate where we’ve been and what we look forward to. It’s about family, friends, and community and what we have to celebrate — and to be thankful for,” Tournament of Roses President Ed Morales said in a statement.
Sitting near the warehouse entrance, Diane Davis plucked black beans one by one from a white cup and glued them with a thin paint brush to a panel bearing the image of Jesus and two children.
His brown hair was made of cinnamon, his white robe crushed rice and the blue background was finely cut statice flower that had been trimmed with small scissors.
The scene was being constructed on a panel, one of many that made up the Lutheran Hour Ministries float in 2023. It has since been repurposed as a display model to teach visitors about the work that goes into creating floats.
An identical one will be featured on this year’s Lutheran Hour float, which will showcase two heralding angels and a church complete with stained glass windows.
Davis’ mother, Fran, worked on the original panel two years ago and noticed that the black beans she so carefully installed were beginning to crumble. This week, on her 89th birthday, she began the painstaking work of using a razor blade to remove the damaged beans and replace them with new ones.
Even a display panel must look its best, both mother and daughter said.
“These beans have a little white on them and that’s not supposed to show,” Davis said.
“My mom has a bit of a short fuse,” she added with a laugh. “She did it for three hours today and then said, ‘I’m done.’ So I have to make sure I get this right.”
This year’s participants finalized designs in the spring and spent the rest of the year bringing their vision to life. For Canadian nonprofit Coding for Veterans, which trains service members to work in tech and cybersecurity, the Rose Parade is a chance to honor the armed services and send a message that veterans are ready for a new life.
Last year, Coding for Veterans participated in the Rose Parade for the first time, said Steve Cassar, a spokesperson for the organization. This year’s design includes a 55-foot replica of the USS Princeton aircraft carrier, a Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter made of seaweed and parsley, a laptop with a working QR code that will provide information for the nonprofit and a pyrotechnic feature.
The logo is made out of blueberries, kidney beans and navy beans, and two murals are made out of black onion seeds and dried coconut.
“It’s organized chaos,” said Jeff Musson, executive director of Coding for Veterans. “Right now you have people going everywhere, trays of flowers getting pulled out of loading areas, transport trucks dropping things off, and then you have a whole host of people putting these roses on the float."
Like many participants of the parade, Musson grew up watching it on TV as a child. He saw it in person a few times as an adult before Coding for Veterans became an official contestant.
“If you would have said I would be a part of this iconic parade, I would have said ‘no way,’” he said. “But as the saying goes, the year ends with the ball drop in New York and it starts with the Rose Parade in Pasadena.”
The Rose Parade started in 1890 as a kind of booster event by the Valley Hunt Club, an elite social organization for wealthy Pasadena families. It was a way to highlight the region’s mild weather compared to the East Coast’s snowy, dark winters.
“In New York, people are buried in snow,” announced Professor Charles F. Holder at a Club meeting when the parade was first founded, according to the Tournament of Roses website. “Here our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let’s hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise.”
The first participants used horse-drawn carriages adorned with flowers but have since grown into massive, motorized floats that take months to build. They travel at an average of 2.5 mph over a 5.5-mile route, according to the Tournament of Roses.
This year’s grand marshal is tennis icon and gender-equality activist Billie Jean King, who won 20 Wimbledon titles and drew some 90 million viewers for the 1973 televised “Battle of the Sexes” match against Bobby Riggs.
Kicking off the 2025 festivities will be a co-headlined performance by Kiesza, who will sing her hit “I Go Dance,” and Aloe Blacc his anthem “Wake Me Up,” featuring the late Avicci. Mid-parade performances will include country artists Timothy Wayne singing “Louisiana Saturday Night,” Brandon Bennett blending country and gospel and the trio Chapel Hart.
The grand finale will bring together aughts pop darling Betty Who and '80s phenom Debbie Gibson.
“What better way to start the year than with that hope and optimism and joy,” said David Eads, Tournament of Roses CEO.
