Each spring, ISU students, faculty, staff, alumni and other community members line the streets on campus to partake in the festivities known as Veishea. But what draws these spectators out in the early morning hours — well, at 10:30 a.m. — rain or shine to enjoy the parade?

To put it simply, the floats. But even as float entries have dwindled over the years, Iowa Staters keep coming and people have kept making them.

“It’s about keeping traditions alive,” said Michael Giese, the co-chairman that oversees Delta Tau Delta fraternity’s Veishea float creation. “Delts have been involved with creating floats since the parade started.”

The fraternity is one of the few groups that still creates a “traditional” float. Veishea parade co-chairman Wes Strohbehn described traditional floats as being decorated primarily in paint and papier-mache and usually carry an obvious theme. They also typically don’t have any riders.

Even though these are usually the most-admired floats in the parade, the number of people creating them has decreased over the years.

The other Veishea parade co-chairman, Aaron Lorch said this is due primarily to a lack of time and money.

“Greek pairings used to create traditional floats,” Lorch said. “But in recent years, they’ve become less committed to it since there are so many other activities going on in the greek community.”

But even with more activities going on in the greek community, Delta Tau Delta members make it a priority each year, Giese said.

“Our guys love doing it, and they work extremely hard to keep it going,” Giese said. “But it does take a lot of time.”

Giese said they start preparing in January by putting up a makeshift barn in their back parking lot.

“We have about 30 spaces in our back lot,” Giese said. “The barn probably takes up a third of those spaces.”

From January to April, anywhere from 20 to 40 men work on the float, whether that includes the actual creation of the float, fundraising or working inside on smaller projects. Delta Tau Delta’s sorority pairings work on it too, adding more helping hands to get it done.

But Giese said all the hard work is worth it.

“It’s the coolest feeling ever,” Giese said. “We get to show people we built this.”

Strohbehn said this year’s parade will see less than 10 traditional floats.

“There will also be more than 10 nontraditional floats,” Strohbehn said. “As well as performances like Duh-H and local bands will be in the parade, too.”

In total, there will be more than 100 floats in this year’s parade. For more information on this year’s Veishea parade and activities, visit the Veishea website.