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A 'float' is a decorated platform, either built on a vehicle or towed behind one, which is a component of many festive parades, such as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Key West Fantasy Fest parade, and the Tournament of Roses Parade. For the latter event, floats are decorated entirely in flowers.
Parade floats were first introduced in the middle ages when churches used pageant wagons as movable scenery for passion plays. Artisan Guilds were responsible for building the pageant wagons for their specified craft. The wagons were pulled through out the town, most notably during Corpus Christi in which up to 48 wagons were used, one for each play in the Corpus Christi cycle.
The name is derived from the first floats, which were decorated barges that were towed along canals with ropes held by parade marchers on the shore.

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Floats in popular culture

Floats in popular culture

The climax of the movie ''Animal House'' features the protagonists from the title fraternity surreptitiously launching their own float into a parade featuring legitimate entries from many of their rivals. The illicit float, in the form of a giant decorated cake adorned with the words "Eat Me" later splits open to reveal the parade-destroying "Deathmobile" inside. ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' also has an important scene on a float, where the truant title character, rather than keeping a low profile while skipping school, lip-syncs "Danke Schoen" and "Twist and Shout" atop a float in the Von Steuben Day Parade through Chicago.