The Hythe Venetian Fete started back in 1860 and was held intermittently as part of the Town's Cricket Week, one evening of the week was “En Fete” where the festivities moved from the cricket ground to the nearby Military canal, where cricketing celebrities and the town's folk took to watercraft; rowing skips, Indian canoes and punts, these were decorated and draped with strings of fairy lights and lanterns. In 1928 the fete was adopted by the Chamber of Commerce and became a more sophisticated animal. With Mayoral support it became more spectacular with parades of decorated floats on different themes that were illuminated as the light faded.

Stephen Bailey is a very enterprising young man who is local to the Hythe area. He studied countryside management in Wales and returned to Kent to started a landscaping business, which he has run successfully for the last four years. Throughout that time he has become a regular visitor to Jacksons Fencing and has built a relationship with the company and is an enthusiastic advocate of the quality of Jackson's products.

He requested that Jacksons consider sponsoring him with some product for his floating garden. It seemed obvious to combine Jacksons' Venetian panel fencing with a Venetian Fete.

The results were impressive, the Venetian panels created a bower at the rear end of the float with a deck underneath and table, chairs lanterns and plants. At the front of the float Stephen created a canal-shaped water feature that stretched across the full width, this cunningly pumped water up from the Military canal, the water flowed off each end of the feature over the side and back into the canal, with a fountain in the centre of the flow.