My wife and daughter had recorded on DVR a program series called "The Unpoppables" on TLC network while I was on a one week road trip with my son through Death Valley, near area 51, and Las Vegas. My wife had said I used to have a business like this with my ex-wife to my now 14 year old daughter with my new wife. So she wanted to see what I used to do in one of my businesses that I used to own. It was a part of the philosophy that I still have that one should be infinitely creative in their lives if they are capable of this kind of creative genius. Because otherwise people tend to get just so stuck in their ruts otherwise. So, out of the 1960s I endeavored to always be "The captain of my own ship and the master of my own destiny" and I have always lived this way to the best of my ability always.
So, when a friend of my ex-wife's and I had a business that he wanted to sell us a part of we jumped at the chance. At first it was a part time thing but later on he also sold us the part of his business that was exactly like this series. However, remember this was the 1980s and early 1990s and a lot of the more refined parts of the balloon decorating business hadn't been refined yet.
At that time we charge $1 a balloon for anything over 100 balloons. At this price we could afford to decorate them any way the clients wanted. And over 250 balloons we would start to discount below $1 a balloon down to $.75 a balloon and over 1000 balloons we sometimes even could afford to discount to about $.50 cents a balloon.
Our biggest job ever was 7000 balloons, but that amount of balloons was normal for New Years Eve spread among several clients. But the business was pretty dead between Thanksgiving and Christmas usually. So, like many businesses it was feast or famine which is normal for many service businesses.
However, over the course of a year it could be very lucrative especially if you are near a large area of potential wealthy clients and there is or was a demand for such things were you live. There were two main reasons I got out of the business. First, my wife and I were breaking up in the early 1990s and 2nd portable helium tanks got to be available at supermarkets along with stocks of balloons. This killed the low end of the business for us. However, the high end which is a very skilled artistic and detailed and engineering part of the business like you see on "The Unpoppables" most people don't have the skills (without a lot of Art training and basic engineering skills) to manage. Also, to be in this business you must have excellent people skills in dealing often with very rich and intelligent people and if you can't convince them that you can do the job to their satisfaction then forget it.
So, the problem now for people wanting to get into the business is that the low end is managed by florists and supermarket helium balloon kits so it is very hard to get training unless you work for someone else and usually they won't want you to know all the engineering and artistic secrets because then you might open a business and compete with them.
The man we bought our first business from was an artist, a balloon clown and an inventor. He had raised his son in Alaska and was a very creative and unique fellow. He actually invented the balloon arch method using large paperclips through the lips of the balloons. This is now the basis of all Balloon Decorators and Artists worldwide in regard to advanced helium balloon designs in arches (2, 3 and 4 balloon designs). I personally have created 1000 balloon arches across boulevards using 3 or 4 balloon configurations. But this doesn't work in a wind above 5 or 10 mph outside.
My wife was the artist and I was the engineer. (You need both for a successful business). She would come up with something really crazy made from helium or air filled or nitrogen filled balloons and I would have to find a way to actually engineer the thing to actually be practical and functional in addition to being beautiful and effective as a creative design.
3 comments:
That’s amazing that you had a successful business doing this kind of art work back then. I remember we had simple arches at our graduation party for my High School but they were so simple compared to the show. I found out about the series when I was looking around at the hundreds of shows on dishonline.com http://bit.ly/dJzWgo. I hope you were able to watch the show when you got back. I logged into my DISH employee account to record the show but there weren’t any upcoming episodes so I hope it hasn’t been canceled.
A friend of ours started working as a clown but was also an inventor and he started the paper clip as a useful arch maker sometime in the 1970s or early 1980s. We first worked with him in the 80s and eventually bought his businesses one at a time. The businesses grew freeform and during this time all sorts of people nationwide either copied his methods or added to them and developed their own methods. I guess this type of business both clowning with balloons and then balloon bouquets and then larger venues became interested in artists and technicians coming together to artistically design as well as engineer various creations with helium, (air from reverse vacuum cleaner motors) or nitrogen) depending on how long or how buoyant someone wanted their creation to last. Eventually balloon releases were slowed down or stopped in some areas(especially over the ocean because sea creatures and birds sometimes got tangled in the lines and mylar when they went to altitude and popped. So it all has had a long time to evolve. I only got involved in the early 1980s through the 1990s. When Grocery stores started selling disposable helium tanks the 50 to 300 balloon part of the business fell off as people bought temporary tanks and did their own parties. So, now it is mostly either top end (500 to infinity amount of balloons or clowns with a bouquet or animal balloons. There doesn't seem to be a mid range business or one that does all three anymore that I have seen unless it is just a part time business.
I worked as a design engineer and my wife at that time was the artist creating the ideas that I had to find some way to engineer. The largest group of balloons at one time we did was 7000 balloons in one job. But most creations for larger venues were nitrogen or air and the average of these creations was probably 500 to 1000 to 3000 balloons using cold steel that is used in chain link fences in rolls to make life size animals and things like dolphins that were either surrealistic or relatively lifelike. Also lighting was used to emphasize many of these creations that could either fill a ballroom or be all around the people or all sorts of artistic interfaces. Since our business was on the ocean one of our specialties was helium balloons emulating seaweed so people could walk through helium balloon kelp forests.
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