Another year, another Rose Parade in Pasadena.
The storied annual event represents the culmination of a year filled with planning, vetting, fundraising – and of course float construction. While many floats are self-built by their individual Pasadena Tournament of Roses organizations, a significant cross section is assembled by Artistic Entertainment Services Inc., an Azusa-based entertainment design and fabrication studio.
Builders with AES enter the picture once the individual organizations have designed their floats and had them approved by the Tournament of Roses organization.
“Once they’re accepted, they meet with other float builders and choose who they want to have fabricate their float. We work with them to bring that vision to life,” said Kyle Amerine, the Rose Parade project manager for AES. “It is a very collaborative process to make a Rose Parade float. Once we have a final design it usually takes two months to build and have it ready for float decoration.”
The parade this year included 43 floats, of which 16 were built by AES. The fabrication involves a large amount of metal and woodworking as scenes are created, as well as the electronics to animate them. The flowers, of course, are the last to be added.
Amerine noted that this recent round of operations wasn’t really affected by supply chain issues that have raised prices for certain construction materials.
“Basically, 100% of the build is done in-house, so we’ve been doing this long enough that we’ve got a good grasp on how to do that,” he said. “Material sourcing wasn’t a problem.”
That in-house touch gives AES some leeway to help clients with some special endeavors. One of this year’s special projects was helping UPS achieve its goal of adding a 34-foot-tall animatronic seahorse to its float, which set a Guinness World Record for largest animatronic fish, Amerine said. “We tailored the float to make sure we could hit that market and get them into the Guinness Book.”
Outside of the Rose Parade float work, AES keeps itself busy locally and elsewhere. Regular clients include Disneyland in Anaheim, Universal Studios Hollywood in Universal City, the annual Vanity Fair Oscar Party and producing stage elements for bands on tour.
For Amerine, however, none of it quite holds a candle to the history and tradition of volunteerism with the Rose Parade.
“It’s fantastic to be a part of that,” he said. “Since I’ve been working for the company and living in the San Gabriel Valley, it’s very near and dear to all of our hearts to be able to build these floats and have the whole world see them on Jan. 1. It’s a humbling experience and very fun to do every year.”
