The City of Edmonton has decided to retire its inflatable parade float, four years after it was first rolled out.
Back in 2012, the inflatable parade float was unveiled by City Council – at a cost of $80,000 – it was meant to show a number of elements considered part of Edmonton’s identity: including a pyramid on the top, and swooping colours meant to represent northern lights below.
The float, which was originally 33 metres long and 14 metres high, made its first appearance at the parade for Capital Ex, the previous name for K-Days, in July, 2012.
During the first parade, the balloon ran into a number of issues and had to be refurbished, and shortened before parades the following summer.
Since then, it has appeared in about 20 parades around Alberta.
However, a city spokesperson said officials might go back to the drawing board for ways to promote Edmonton.
“It’s in perfect working condition,” Melissa Lovatt, with the City of Edmonton said. “With any float or balloon of this kind, you have to look at how many times have people seen it, are they used to seeing it.
“And the standard amongst parades in the industry is about three years; the expectation is that you should refresh it every three years. So we got a couple more years of use out of it, and now we’re at the point where a decision needs to be made whether we’ll continue to have a presence, or if we’ll develop something new.”
Lovatt said the float was difficult to staff, the float needed 12 to 16 people to pull it.
It would be up to City Council to decide on next steps – whether to repurpose it or continue to use it.
