It’s like clockwork.
Hundreds of local high schoolers this weekend will begin their quest to be selected to the coveted 2026 Rose Parade Rose Court, with tryouts taking place over two days.
The event, steeped in Tournament of Roses tradition, is one of the first to mark the beginning of Rose Parade season as the calendar turns toward the fall.
But this year is like no other, Tournament officials and local leaders said this week.
Underpinning the traditional pageantry of it all this season is what happened only a week after the last Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game.
A catastrophe.
Jan. 7, 2025. The “Best Day Ever!” on Jan. 1 turns to the worst: the Eaton fire six days later.
How the disaster is reflected in the parade and Rose Bowl game come this Jan. 1, 2026, remains unknown. We still don’t know who the grand marshal is. The Rose Queen coronation is still weeks away. Floats are still to be introduced to the world.
But it’s clear that as the season moves into full gear, the Tournament of Roses — the parade and all its associated events, and its bowl game — will be set in the shadow of the remnants of mammoth blaze.
After all, just blocks from where the mesmerizing Rose Parade floats annually come to rest after the parade, are the reminders — the cleared lots once full of rubble, a community still steeped in recovery mode, where many still contemplate whether they can even afford to rebuild.
For organizers, the framework of conceiving this coming Tournament of Roses includes constant conversation and planning around balancing its traditions with the need to acknowledge that Pasadena, and the town just to its north, Altadena, were ground zero to one of the most horrific and mammoth natural disasters L.A. County has ever seen.
The aftermath of the fire has also prompted questions, concerns and criticism from leaders and residents in the area, as the parade season itself draws closer.
“It will come as no surprise to you that, no, Altadena has not been approached or otherwise considered, which, you can imagine, feels like a slight, albeit familiar,” Altadena Town Council Chair Victoria Knapp said in an email.
Knapp said she has reached out to the tournament about providing parade grandstand seats or game tickets for fire survivors.
But Tournament organizers say they are keenly aware of just how much this year’s festivities will be seen by many through a lens of the fire.
“We are deeply committed to honoring the service and the strength of this community,” Tournament Chief Executive Officer David Eads said. “Whether it’s in the parade or the game or any of our related events, our goal is to recognize the impact of first-responders and affected families in a meaningful and respectful way.”
The Tournament of Roses has already taken steps to acknowledge the impact of the Eaton fire tragedy this year.
Officials announced that students displaced by the fire could apply for the Rose Court if they still attended a school within the tournament’s geographic boundaries.
In addition, the tournament established an emergency relief fund, distributed $1 million worth of gift cards from local partners and pledged $1.5 million with the College Football Playoff Foundation and the New Year’s Day bowls toward the rebuilding of Eliot Arts Magnet School in Altadena.
On Aug. 24, the association recognized first responders from Pasadena’s police and fire departments who helped battle the blaze and evacuate residents.
The Eaton fire is a constant topic of discussion for Mark Leavens, president of the 137th Rose Parade.
A 30-year veteran of the Tournament, Leavens had chosen the parade theme months before the deadly fire.
In true Rose Parade fashion, he turned “The Magic in Teamwork” message into a that lens through which to view the disaster, recognizing how neighbors, first responders and volunteers worked together to help, even as the wildfire raged.
“Through our events, we hope to show the world how Pasadena and Altadena are moving forward since the Eaton fire as our community remembers, recovers, and rebuilds,” Leavens said.
Within a week of the last float reaching the end of the 5.5-mile parade route on Jan. 1, the Eaton fire ravaged the town of Altadena and parts of Pasadena and Sierra Madre. At least 19 people died, 14,000 acres burned and more than 9,000 structures were destroyed.
Not only was the timing of the fire eerily close to the parade, but the footprint of the fire was essentially in the tournament’s backyard.
Organizers are conscious of the Eaton fire burn zone being within miles of the parade route and many of its related events.
“Our ongoing parade content planning has been deeply affected by the fire, from float designs to music selection, to vehicles our guests will ride in,” Leavens said.
Floatfest is the last tradition of parade season, where people can get an up-close look at the floats after they’ve made the journey down Colorado Boulevard.
“Through our events, we hope to show the world how Pasadena and Altadena are moving forward since the Eaton fire as our community remembers, recovers, and rebuilds.” — Mark Leavens, president of the 137th Rose Parade
The floats are parked near Pasadena High School at Sierra Madre Boulevard and Washington Boulevard. Just to the northwest of that intersection, behind the high school, are some of the southernmost structures that burned in the fire, which sparked up in the foothills above Altadena.
A week on from the pageantry of University of Oregon green and Ohio State University scarlet taking over the Rose Bowl, the parking lot of the venerable stadium became a staging area for thousands of first responders who descended on the area to fight the blaze.
On Jan. 7, as winds whipped a spark into an inferno at Eaton Canyon, Leavens took in his father from Monrovia and opened his home to friends from Sierra Madre who had to evacuate.
Out of the 935 volunteers that work at 31 Tournament of Roses association committees, 51 members and staffers either lost their home or sustained major damage to it. Yet, volunteers showed up to help relief efforts days after the fire erupted until today, when parade and game preparations are slowly ramping up, Leavens said.
Altadena Sheriff’s Station Capt. Ethan Marquez said while people from out of town have moved on or forgotten what happened to Altadena, residents are still going through the ramifications on a daily basis.
“If they do want to recognize the Altadena Station or deputies from Altadena Station that were there that night, I’m more than happy to talk with them and we can work something out,” Marquez said.
Not just a Pasadena tradition
These days, Joy Chen, one of the founders of the 8,000-strong Eaton fire Survivors Network, is caught up in all things wildfire recovery. She hasn’t had much time to think about the Rose Parade.
Every New Year’s Day for years, she and her family, toting her famous turkey chili, would go to a friend’s Pasadena home, just off the parade route, and take in the pageantry in person.
This year, living as one of thousands who lost their homes in the fire, and the attendant stresses, challenges and problems it presents, Chen said she’s glad the parade is marching on.
“We want to go back to our normal routines and celebrations,” she said. “It would be nice if they commemorate survivors somehow, as well as the people who perished. We’ve lost so much, and it would help if they somehow acknowledged what happened.”
Altadena’s history with the Rose Parade goes back to its beginnings. The Valley Hunt Club was founded at the Altadena home of Bayard Smith on Mariposa, according to author and historian Michele Zack’s “Altadena: Between Wilderness and City.”
Zack also wrote that Altadena had its own float and court of queens and princesses in the tournament around the mid-20th century.
According to the Altadena Historical Society, Altadena had a float entered in the parade for almost seven decades through the late 1960s.
Carla Hall, 77, of Norco, has missed only one Rose Parade in the more than 65 years she has trekked to Pasadena, where she grew up. She and her son Rick even stood at their usual spot near the route’s end on Sierra Madre Boulevard the year the parade was canceled because of the COVID pandemic in 2021.
Hall said she’s sure the event will be a boon for everyone watching in person or on TV. She remembers last year’s “Best Day Ever” parade for its spectacular bands and its in-sync musicians and said she’s ready to claim her spot on New Year’s Day.
“It will give people something exciting and beautiful to look at as opposed to all the burnt-out remains,” Hall said.
Fire area visitors and logistical changes
Every year the parade draws tens of thousands of visitors from around the world to the Pasadena/Altadena area. Visit Pasadena Executive Director Kristin McGrath said this week that there aren’t any formal indicators yet as to whether the fire will impact tourism around the upcoming New Year’s Day festivities.
“The Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl Game are our most iconic and well-attended events of the year,” McGrath said in an email. “We remain optimistic that travelers are still eager to experience the magic of Pasadena during this special season.”
“It will give people something exciting and beautiful to look at as opposed to all the burnt-out remains,” — Carla Hall
Knapp said the question of how to handle swaths of curious visitors from out of town who may want to observe the fire’s aftermath first-hand has been on local leaders’ minds.
“We do expect to see an influx of visitors to Altadena to see the aftermath of the fire and our rebuilding efforts by that time,” Knapp said in an email. “Also, Christmas Tree Lane will still be lit. It is something we need to further discuss in terms of crowd management and safety.”
A logistical change unrelated to the Eaton fire is the Rose Bowl game being moved up one hour to 1 p.m. Pasadena spokesperson Lisa Derderian said this is expected to mean more pedestrian traffic going directly from the parade to the Rose Bowl.
“We’ll just need to be more methodical, strategic in the way that we move pedestrians at the end of the parade, and I’m sure the Tournament with the parade will have to be more strategic in the way they line up the floats and all the parade participants, so that those that need to get down to the game earlier will have that ability,” Derderian said.
The city starts general New Year’s Day planning early and often to be able to pivot based on current events. As an example, Derderian and parade organizers awoke this year’s Jan. 1 to news out of New Orleans of a vehicle driving through a crowd on Bourbon Street killing 14 people and injuring more than 50 others.
“That kept us busy,” Derderian said. “We were confident in the plans we had in place with the very robust vehicle barriers that we have but that was the big topic last year.”
An upcoming milestone in October is the announcement of the parade’s grand marshal. As for clues to his final choice for grand marshal for this singular, post-disaster Rose Parade, Leavens is circumspect.
This year’s grand marshal will embody two things: “First, that they will be a wonderful ambassador for the Tournament of Roses and second, that they will personify this year’s theme, ‘The Magic in Teamwork.’”
“All those key milestones, we’re going to hit,” Eads said. “That doesn’t change. But I think it’s how we look at the world around us that’s really changed.”