Bloemencorso

Bloemencorso

Bloemencorso means "flower parade", "flower pageant" or "flower procession". In a parade of this kind the floats , cars and boats are magnificently decorated or covered in flowers. Each parade has its own character, charm and theme...

 Zundert

Zundert

Zundert is a municipality and a town in Noord Brabant, the Netherlands.Zundert lies about 10 metres above Dutch sea level , and is located 15 km south-west of the city of Breda, and 35 km north-east of Antwerp, Belgium...

 is the largest flower parade

Flower parade

A flower parade is a parade in which the floats, vehicles, boats, participants, animals and other things are decorated or covered in flowers. Often there are other elements like marching bands and people in costumes...

 in the world entirely made by volunteers. The parade takes place every first Sunday of September. The floats are large artworks made of steel wire, cardboard, paper mache and of course flowers. In the Bloemencorso Zundert only dahlias are used to decorate the objects and it takes thousands of them just to cover one float.

The huge floats are made by twenty different hamlets and each of them consists of hundreds of builders, aged 1 to 100, who are all equally crazy about the bloemencorso. The older members of the hamlet are often responsible for planting and growing the dahlias, while the younger ones build the float in large temporary tents that are build exclusively for the event.

The bloemencorso is also a competition. A professional and independent jury will decide which float is the most beautiful and which hamlet will be crowned the winner of that year.

Social element and hamlets

Building a float for the corso is mainly a social event. Builders of all ages work side by side for over three months to get the float of their hamlet ready on time. It has to be as perfect as possible in order to win the competition.




The parade itself takes place on the first Sunday of September, but the members of the hamlets work on their float all summer. The tents are put up in May or June and from then on the volunteers put all their effort in creating the giant artworks. The last three days before the actual parade are the most stressful. Because the flowers have to be fresh the hamlets can only start applying the dahlias on the floats on the Thursday before the parade. If necessary, the builders will work day and night to have their float ready on Sunday.
Most people in Zundert will happily give up their days off to work on the float. The social cohesion that comes from building it is very important. A hamlet is like a family where everyone knows each other and everyone is welcome. After a long evening working on the float people drink a beer together and most hamlets organize all kinds of other activities like song contests and barbecues.
For years seventeen hamlets participated in the corso. In recent years three more decided to enter the competition. An extraordinary accomplishment as building a float costs a lot money and hundreds of people are needed.
Now there are twenty hamlets competing in Bloemencorso Zundert. Those are:

• Achtmaal
• De Berk
• De Lent
• Helpt Elkander
• 't Kapelleke
• Klein Zundert
• Klein-Zundertse Heikant
• Laarheide
• Laer-Akkermolen
• Markt
• Molenstraat
• Poteind
• Raamberg
• Stuivezand
• 't Stuk
• Rijsbergen
• Schijf
• Tiggelaar
• Veldstraat
• Wernhout