‘Butterflies in your stomach, goosebumps on your arms’

Every year, student Irene Bovendeur (26) helps build floats with the Olympia float-building group in Sintjansklooster. “It’s more than just a float; it’s the entire process.”

Sintjansklooster. “It’s more than just a float; it’s the whole process.” As you walk onto the construction site, just behind the car dealership, you nearly trip over small children sketching the parade float. On scaffolding towering meters high, people are hard at work with tape, newspaper, and dahlias. Irene, student Teaching Certificate for Vocational Education (Deeltijdopleiding Pedagogisch Didactisch Getuigschrift), puts her hands on her hips and nods toward the gigantic structure inside the tent: “This is going to be the float this year!”

The start of the construction process

The Sintjansklooster flower parade is one of the year’s highlights. In mid-August, gigantic floats adorned with flowers, specifically dahlias, make their way through the village at a walking pace. Crowds line the streets to admire the floats. Several of these parades, including those in Vollenhove and Sintjansklooster, are now recognized as Intangible World Heritage. Known as ‘dahlia giants,’ each year the floats are constructed with care by various building teams. As you drive towards Sintjansklooster, signs of the parade are visible throughout the village: towering white tents where the floats are built, fields where the teams cultivate their flowers, and displays showing the date of the parade.

This year, Irene’s building group has opted for a structure featuring towering purple church towers as the main attraction. The tiny scale model stands at the front of the construction site so the builders know exactly what the finished structure should look like.

After a design has been selected with great care and attention and the construction drawings are ready, the actual building work begins in May.

Even though a blueprint is already in place, there are still plenty of additions: “People often have more ideas, like how to make things move on the float, or whether the framework might be better constructed a different way. Then we weld the structure.” When asked where she learned this skill, Irene laughs: “Everyone here knows how to weld. It’s just something you learn when you build floats.”

The last week

It has been all hands on deck these past few weeks, as is evident at the construction site right now. People are looking for tape and newspapers, and climbing up and down the scaffolding. The cardboard that has been attached is painted before the flowers are pinned onto it; that way, if any flowers happen to fall off during the parade, it won’t be quite as noticeable.

“During the summer, I spend all my time at the construction site or working on the parade float. This year, I’m also coordinating the performers.” These performers bring the float to life: they walk alongside it or ride on it during the parade, completing the story. “We always rehearse without the float; the performers can only practice with the actual float at the very last moment, once it’s finished.”

“The time just before the parade is always the most intense. Since you can’t start attaching the dahlias too early or they won’t hold up the work has to be done during the final week. The night before the parade is the ‘pinning night,’ when everyone pitches in to get the float fully covered as quickly as possible. I’ve pulled all-nighters myself just to get the float finished.”

Grand ambitions

“We build to reach the top,” says Irene. “My parents, sister, and younger brother belong to a different building group, one that builds simply because they enjoy it. The people there were also a bit older than me when I first started getting seriously involved. The group I’m in now included some friends of mine, so I made the switch.” This means Irene is effectively building ‘against’ her parents, but it is a matter of healthy competition: “Ultimately, we all just want a great parade. I’ve even helped another group with the flower-pinning once or twice, because otherwise their float wouldn’t have been finished on time. It’s a whole-village effort.”

“I’ve already been on vacation to beat the crowds, but I won’t be going away in the summer. I’ll be here then. I’ve never known it any other way: this is such an integral part of Sintjansklooster that you simply have to be here. When you live here, you have just one dream: winning the parade!”

Butterflies and goosebumps

“My favorite float was the one from two years ago. That was ‘Greedy’, a float featuring vultures perched atop a treasure hoard. We had worked through the night, and it was a real nail-biter whether we’d get it finished in time.” By morning—after a night of intense, non-stop work—the float was ready, and what a sight it was! “I stood there in tears as it rolled out. ‘Why are you crying?’ someone asked. I replied, ‘I’m so tired, but it’s so beautiful!’”

“You don’t really see the float for the first time until Friday morning, when the scaffolding is dismantled and it rolls out of the tent. Before that, you only see it inside the tent, with so much else in the way. The performers join in at the assembly area where you drive for the parade. That is such a special moment—that’s when you get butterflies in your stomach and goosebumps on your arms.”