Balloon Bending
How to Avoid Going Round The Twist
Balloon Bending or balloon twisting as it's more commonly known has become an enjoyable add on to my career as a magician and children's entertainer in Brisbane.
I never intended to be a balloon modeller; I'm an accidental twister. I found out that I was reasonably good at it and I enjoyed the twisting of air into recognisable shapes, or AIRAGAMI you'll hear it called.
As is the way I always end up wanting to share my skills and knowledge; this was no different. Soon I had started
balloon twisting workshops
where I taught people to make a basic dog and a sword then showed them the basic hat frame from where they went free form and created their own crazy hats.
The popularity of these hands on workshops grew and I started doing
vacation care workshops
for children aged 5 to 13 years during school holidays. Though fun these could be problematic for me as each child receives 10 inflated modelling balloons to work with. A workshop with 25 kids means a managable 250 balloons that I have to blow but 70 kids attending means 700!
Why then did I agree to this ...
About 4 hours north of Brisbane is a town called Hervey Bay. A vacation care or Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) as they are known asked if I would drive that far to do a balloon bending workshop and a magic show. I agreed with this one stipulation: that they arrange another 2 schools that I could do on the same day to make the trip worthwhile.
They came through with the other schools BUT one of them had 80 children attending. That mean't I had 1200 balloons to take with me so I loaded up my trailer and set off at 5am to make it there by 9am.
As I'm driving up the highway, listening to the news of the world and sipping my coffee a car pulls alongside and gestures for me to wind down my window. I'm hesitant but oblige. Past the wind buffeting I hear the driver calling, "Look in your rear view mirror!!" I did. Uh oh, it was balloon mayhem. Balloons were escaping my trailer, slithering their way through the wire cage and being sucked out by the wind and air pressure. A long line of balloon carnage disappeared to the vanishing point in my rear view mirror. My trailer resembled a giant multi coloured Medusa angrily attacking the other cars on the freeway.
Luck was on my side and an exit was close by. I pulled off to inspect the damage. Whatever the number I certainly didn't have 1200 modelling balloons any more. It was just a mess. The balloons had escaped from their baskets. I secured the load as best I could and headed north again.
Whatever I had done seemed to work ... or so I thought until another car pulled alongside, it's driver encouraging me to wind down my window and look back. Oh no, not again. I pulled off and used towels and shirts and whatever I could lay my hands on to sheet the inside of the wire cage. I made sure it was secure and drove on.
My extra attention to detail seemed to have paid off as I had gone more than twenty minutes without incident. Then in the corner of my eye I noticed a car pull alongside me and slow. This time I wound down my window first and called out, "I know, I know."
Eventually I did make it to Hervey Bay. It was late, there were not 1200 balloons, and I was not a happy balloon bender. But the show must go on so I put on a happy face, brought out balloon pumps and we had a lot of fun balloon bending anyway.
So if you don't want to go around the twist follow my lead and box in the wire cage of your trailer with plywood.
See more balloon bending and magic at Julian's homepage
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