Author Topic: PROPS: Balloon Management  (Read 3541 times)

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On_Headset

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PROPS: Balloon Management
« on: Jul 14, 2014, 03:21 am »
This is a problem a student brought to me a few weeks ago, and -- at the time -- I was genuinely at a loss.

The show (a musical, cast of 30) involves balloons. Lots and lots of balloons: eighty or ninety.

These balloons enter from all directions (black-box venue with your standard 4 "cardinal" entrances: USR, DSR, USL, DSL), and move very quickly: actors (in groups of 3-4) dash off, grab balloons, and then dash back on. No time to run to a "balloon room" or anything to that effect. The entire process should take 20 seconds or fewer, meaning balloons must appear at a rate of roughly 4 per second. (Not so bad when spread across 4 entrances, but certainly far too quick to inflate them on-demand!)

Due to staffing constraints, it will not be possible to have an ASM or "balloon wrangler" at every entrance to monitor or distribute them. Actors must be able to access the balloons unaided, so whatever system is devised cannot be too convoluted or finicky.

The balloons are fungible: an actor might need to grab 2 balloons, but it doesn't matter which 2 they grab. The balloons will be filled with air, none of that fancy helium stuff.

How would you manage these balloons? (Don't forget, we're talking about a truly incredible number of fully-inflated balloons here.)

Here's our observations and our solution (in teeny tiny wee font), but I'm curious as to how others might have solved this problem! Please share!

The main problem we identified is that the balloons needed to be stowed somewhere, or else they were blowing all over the place. We also found that a domestic trash container could only handle 6-9 balloons (depending upon how inflated they were) without forcing them in and risking blowouts. 6-9 actually isn't very many -- and means we have a dozen big cumbersome containers littering the backstage halls.

Our eventual solution was to raid the costume storage for extra-extra-extra-large laundry bags, with drawstrings instead of zippers. These could handle 12-15 balloons (by stretching to accommodate all the bulges), and were also much easier to transport than trash bins: after they were inflated, we sorted them into laundry bags and stationed them by the appropriate entrances just in time for "BALLOONS GO. BALLOONS GO. BALLOONS GO."

No torrents of balloons blowing through the halls; no trash bins getting knocked over mid-show; nothing popped or broken. Worked very well!

loebtmc

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Re: PROPS: Balloon Management
« Reply #1 on: Jul 14, 2014, 09:25 am »
For those who, like me, needed aid with the "teeny weeny font" - here is their solution (since this is not a contest, not sure why it wasn't in a read-able font initially)

Quote
The main problem we identified is that the balloons needed to be stowed somewhere, or else they were blowing all over the place. We also found that a domestic trash container could only handle 6-9 balloons (depending upon how inflated they were) without forcing them in and risking blowouts. 6-9 actually isn't very many -- and means we have a dozen big cumbersome containers littering the backstage halls.

Our eventual solution was to raid the costume storage for extra-extra-extra-large laundry bags, with drawstrings instead of zippers. These could handle 12-15 balloons (by stretching to accommodate all the bulges), and were also much easier to transport than trash bins: after they were inflated, we sorted them into laundry bags and stationed them by the appropriate entrances just in time for "BALLOONS GO. BALLOONS GO. BALLOONS GO."

No torrents of balloons blowing through the halls; no trash bins getting knocked over mid-show; nothing popped or broken. Worked very well!

And - to avoid things like popping or getting loose, esp accidentally running into any offstage booms in wings, I might have suggested using something that wasn't a balloon but looked like one, a light, fire-safe prop construct that could live offstage on sticks
« Last Edit: Jul 14, 2014, 09:46 am by loebtmc »

On_Headset

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Re: PROPS: Balloon Management
« Reply #2 on: Jul 14, 2014, 11:07 am »
Quote
(since this is not a contest, not sure why it wasn't in a read-able font initially)
I figured people might want to try to puzzle it out before hearing our solution.

iamchristuffin

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Re: PROPS: Balloon Management
« Reply #3 on: Jul 15, 2014, 05:51 am »
If they're filled with air, I would have hung them from a costume rail, or similar, with a tiny bit of tape or BluTack holding each string to the rail. Then they're easily transportable (although they might move around a bit while doing so), and easy for the cast to access.

megf

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Re: PROPS: Balloon Management
« Reply #4 on: Jul 16, 2014, 11:52 am »
I've used soft laundry bags and big plastic garbage bags to manage balloons before, although never such a quantity at one time!

Depending on whether the balloons have string, sticks, or are just loose, I might propose a jury rigged "bin" with bungee cord webbing (from an auto parts store - usually $20ish, depending on the size) and PVC pipe or wardrobe racks. More or less the same setup that's used for basketballs and beach balls at any Toys R Us.

 

riotous