I have no idea how the hell we're going to deal with an 12 foot ceiling.

Out of all of the clients Balloon2 has worked for, the club I Beam has to have been not only one of the most challenging, but also one of the most fun. The relationship with them started when I was helping to put together a Rave and Nightclub magazine called The Seed. The publisher of the magazine went onto become one of the central PR and promotions people for a network of clubs in Denver/Boulder like Club America, Tullagis, Rock Island, and the I Beam. The I Beam was particularly fun because the logistics for setting up were excellent, the amount of lead-time for jobs always seemed to work in our favor - and best of all - the network of evening establishments were making money, so we didn't have to cut our wrists on the margins.

The first I Beam project was putting together a mass of balloons for a background on a syndicated bar/PR push for Valentine's Day by MTV networks and their show Singled Out. For that about 24 bouquets made of heart balloons, double stuffed balloons, and gumball balloons were used. I cut them a major break on the deal because - truth be known, another club had welched out of the deal - and it was the last time I worked without a deposit. After that, the phone rang for a themed night called Car Wash. Pretty easy to design for - lots of balloons that looked like bubbles - IE: Jewltone Clear balloons. The added benefit to these on the nightclub circut is that they take on the color and reflect all of the lighting tools that are found in your average dance floor. Telebeams (you can see one in the upper right of the second to last picture), lasers, spot gells, black lights, glo-beams, and of course strobes - all work in tandem to make your balloons a very creative surface that even the most staunch DJ will have all sorts of fun playing with.

My favorite construct for these types of occasions is what we call the CloudBuster. It's your basic blob made of a very long column that is then twisted in on itself with 11, 16, and 36 inch balloons to help keep anything from getting symetrical. It's very easy to rig, since there's plenty of rig points and high weight trusses that are designed to hold massive PA's. The really nice thing about CloudBusters aside from the asthetics and the logistics is the ease that they can be created, and the fact that just about every nightclub audience can't resist the temptation to trash the thing by the end of the evening. Most nightclubs suffer from what I call - The New Year's Eve Effect. Virtually every crowd will leave your product alone until Midnight - or last call. Then like clockwork, it's cigarettes and cocktail toothpicks for everyone. Usually it starts with a few drinkers - then the whole bar is in on the act. When doing helium balloons, many if not most will end up leaving the place which actually sucks. I then have to worry if the establishment is going to hear about some of it's product getting into the power lines from the local police or utility companies. Haven't heard from any clients yet - but it's always a worry when you're doing stuff downtown. Getting my work destroyed limits the liability to the club - and means I don't have to worry about the tear down. The club cleaning staff just has to sweep up the remains with the rest of the trash. The CloudBuster is usually more pop-prone than most because a giant blob of balloons is a lot more tempting than say an arch, which attracts more attention and is more hastle for the patron - particularly when the bouncers start to close in on their ass.

Ah - but a CloudBuster! Well, just one balloon won't hurt now will it? Well, here's a secret. Sometimes - ok, most of the time - I try to build in an aspect of a practical joke into my work. Balloon2 doesn't do balloon drops - we do balloon drowns. We never do small balloons so if anyone tries to take a balloon home they have to try to cram a 3 footer into their car. Many nights we've seen cars with balloons tied all over the bumpers or ski racks speeding off out of downtown, to the amazement of the rest of the public that wonders where the hell the balloons came from. We particularly like to fill cars and houses because it's more fun and interactive than selling bouqets.

The CloudBuster at the I Beam had one interresting strike going against it. The ceiling was low. Really low. If there was more than 12 feet of floor to ceiling height, I couldn't see it. The dance floor was helped a bit by being lower than the rest of the club - but if anyone had more than 18 inches of clearance before finding their head in an air-bag collective, then the head would have to belong to a frigging midget! That's not the fun part though. The fun part comes from the fact that once the end of evening approached, there was a little surprise for our club of vandels. You see, when I make a CloudBuster - I can pack it tight, double twist the weave around the cord - or otherwise make it stable. Not here - not tonight. I packed them VERY loose. The tension that kept the whole mass stable was from the balloons - not the line. The whole mass had an arm's length of clearance tops. Once a balloon was broken, that area of the mass would shift down slightly. If they popped a 3 footer - then it would shift a much larger portion of the mass. Meaning the more that got popped, the lower the roof would get.

By the the time the last photo shown was taken - looking at the people in shadow - the roof was coming down, and fast. Once it began to really sink - everyone had to pop their way out quickly in order to escape - because the sky was falling, literally, around them. Very amusing to watch, very interactive and fun for the guests, very simple to make, and nothing to tear down. I'd be loathe to mention that the club also gave one of our crew members bartender's rights during the set-up the previous night. I suspect it was sometime around the 3rd round of white russians that we decided to make a slight alteration in the display's construction - particularly the amount of slack in the rigging. In all, it went up smooth - came down easy. Loud - but easy.
-mgabrys

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