Cal Poly made a splash this morning in Pasadena at the 2025 Rose Parade with their float, “Nessie’s Lakeside Laughs.” The design brought the Loch Ness Monster to life to enjoy a playful lakeside adventure with a life-size Scottish terrier, highland cow, beavers and puffins.
Built by the Cal Poly Rose Float organization—a joint team of about 60 students from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly Pomona—the float was one of 140 entries in this year’s Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade.
The parade, which began at 8 a.m., celebrated the theme “Best Day Ever!” with floats, music and marching bands. The Cal Poly Rose Float organization, known for its student-led construction, has earned recognition for its creativity since its first year in the parade in 1949, according to Sophia Napier, organization vice president and landscape architecture senior.
“We were really wanting to make a joyful float that had a very big wow factor with the size of [the Loch Ness Monster] ‘Nessie,’” Napier said.
Since 1949, Cal Poly Rose Float has won a total of 62 awards. As the only student-built entry, Cal Poly is one of six volunteer-built floats. The rest were built by professional and local organizations, said Collin Marfia, organization president and higher education counseling and student affairs graduate student.
Featuring vibrant scenery created with 37,000 flowers and natural materials, Marfia believes that their organization has another award-winning float on their hands this year.
“It’s really impressive and inspiring working with so many students,” Napier said. “People really care a lot about this program and genuinely put all they have into it.”
Creating “Nessie’s Lakeside Laughs”: Cal Poly’s year-long effort
The process for the 2025 float began in December 2023, Napier told Mustang News.
Community members and students submitted design ideas for the float in February. After approval by the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, the chosen design was developed in scale models from March to June. Construction began over the summer.
Students at the San Luis Obispo and Pomona campuses each built half of the float chassis, the main piece of the float itself, during the summer and fall, Marfia said.
From then on, San Luis Obispo students traveled to Pomona every Saturday to work with the Pomona team until parade day, Marfia told Mustang News.
“We like to say that we are one team that just happens to be 200 miles apart,” Marfia said.
