A Great Place to Work!

Imagine walking into your office and seeing this on a Monday morning. You would feel pretty special. This is what happened to a group of people, two weeks ago, in Sydney's north.


Amgen is a client of mine and they have used balloons for celebrations a few times in the last 12 mobths. This time they were celebrating being awarded as one of the Best Places to Work in Australia. I think they came in 15th. The awards were conducted by Business Review Weekly, so it is serious stuff.

To mark the occasion we installed 250 balloons in their foyer (ready by 6.45am on a freeeeezing morning), so that as their staff arrived they got a big surprise.Proof that Amgen is 'officially' a great place to work.

...I wonder if they have any job vacancies...

Funky Dancing Men

No these are not three wise monkeys. They are the new "Funky Dancing Men"...not the ugly bloke in the middle, but the two handsome devils on either side.


A new edition to the brand new MAD Balloons website, you can see that they complement loose balloons on the ceiling very nicely. If you check out the website you will see a range of other uses for these studs! We also make them different sizes for the vertically challenged....

So you need never be without a partner again. Everyone can be part of a 'couple'. Be careful though. As you can see these hunks like to get friendly with the ladies... It's OK Wendy. We won't tell your boyfriend.

New Restaurant Opening....

Welcome to the new Hooters Restaurant Penrith, in Sydney's west. They had their general opening on Saturday, just past. however they called us in to do the decor for their VIP opening. You know you are a Hooters VIP when you can park your Ferrari in fron of the store....

Anyway, we created lots of garland at the entry and the balcony area of the store. This had street frontage so was able to focus the attention of all the passing traffic onto the new restaurant.

Did you know that every hooters in America has a palm tree inside (this is what I am told). We had to get some of these iconic creations in there. Floor space was at a premium so instead of creating a life sized palm tree (from balloons) we modified our feather fantasy table centres to be palm tree centres. cool huh?


As well as the VIP guests, you need your top Hooters girls on hand for the opening. Miss Hooters Australia 2011 (the very lovely Mallory) was on hand and loved MY balloon work so much that she insisted on having her photo taken with me......that's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Work, work, work. My life is constant work.

let's celebrate AMELIA

This is just a short post to show you another way to personalise large star foil balloons. Last post was adding JW letters to one star. This post is about adding one letter to each star. A great effect and one that comes up really well in the photos.


We did this design for Amelia's christening. It was over the cake table ready for the big moment when mum and dad cut the cake, while proudly holding Amelia.

Personalised Stars & Celebrities

I was called in by Parramatta City Library to design something for their new automated loaning system. There new "fast lane checkout" was being rolled out and they wanted something with a racing theme that would stand out in all the libraries. They were very happy with the racing masterbow ribbon on personalised stars, and we installed these in all 5 of the libraries in the council area.



Now that the new Masterchef series is underway, I had better put up my brush with fame. While installing the personalised columns at the Parramatta Library, Jimmy from Masterchef 2010 walked in. He was in the area for the local Indian festival - Parramasala - and can I say, is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth celebrities I have ever met.

Happy Easter everyone

We have another shopping centre client who likes to use us occasionally. They have a "boutique" style centre, so we are able to do a balloon "Easter Egg" display that is interactive.

As you can see the little kids love it.
The manager told me that on Easter Saturday the display is destroyed by the kids as they 'souvenir' items on their way out after the Easter show the centre puts on. He loves it and apparently the kids do too....a win/win situation, so all is good!

We also do a nice big arch at the bottom of the escalators. This is right in the middle of the centre, so it is a real eye catcher for the shoppers. We use heavy weights and ensure all safety standards are met, so that everyone can go about their business. The simple designs really add that Easter Spirit to the centre, and it makes people want to hang around the place....and spend more money in the shops.

I hope you all have a great Easter. Stay safe and have fun.

EASTER BUBBLES

A good client of our wanted some new ideas for Easter for their shopping centres. As times are a bit slow, they wanted to promotion to last 5 weeks. Time to bring out the Qualatex Bubble Balloons.

I presented the Bubble design to the client and they loved it. We installed these in their two shopping centres three weeks ago. I did a maintenance visit today, and they were all still looking fantastic. There are many bubble designs and they are perfect for long lasting displays.

Floral Christening

One of my very good clients asked me to do her daughters christening. She had hired a backdrop that had material and fairylights. She wanted a design to frame that and also the fabulous cake (not pictured unfortunately) She stipulated that it was to be a floral theme. I used some of my floral pillar designs at each side and then pink and lilac flowers across the top - all magically suspended. Not too little, not too much - just right

State Election - Number 1 !

Last weekend we had the state election here in NSW. The Liberal party got into government finally after 16 years. As with the Federal Election last year, MAD Balloons was commissioned to decorate the Liberal Party's party..... We kicked off with the new Qualatex suprafoil numbers. "Make NSW number 1 again" had been the liberal campaign motto, so large number 1 columns were a prefect reflection of this. We combined these with the liberal printed balloons for extra impact. Parramatta Leagues Club is a large venue and we needed to inflate our balloons and coral them in a net so we could arrange them. Wendy and Alicia are working together to size the columns. Wendy is spotting, giving Alicia instructions so that each column is exactly the same height. Once that is all done we move them into position and bingo! It was a sensational party and the balloons behind our new Premier as he made his victory speech looked fantastic.

Sharing is Caring

The thing I love about the balloon industry in NSW is that everyone is willing to help each other out. There are two industry bodies - BASA NSW and QBN. Both are vibrant groups of balloon professionals that offer training and info to members.
At a recent training event I saw this design that was done by Maureen Egan from Balloon Elegance. She shared her design from her portfolio with everyone at the training session.



A client asked me to come up with a design for their Brazilian Carnivale them at the office. Thanks to Maureen, I had the perfect design in my repertoir.

Thankfully Maureen is simply following on from all the instructors who have come before her. When I am called on to instruct I try to share design concepts that will (hopefully) enhance other balloon businesses.

By sharing we create a stronger industry and a bigger base of decorators for our customers to choose from. As a customer you should ask your chosen decorator if they have their CBA (Certified Balloon Artist) or BASA Accreditation. If they do, they are part of a network of professional balloon artists, and you can feel confident in using their services. They can create fantastic designs like the ones you see here.

Black and White...with a hint of Christmas

I wanted to do a short piece about this job we did late last year. There are two reasons.

1) It was one of the most simple and most stunning decor jobs we did (unfortunately the photos do not do it justice).

2) Have a look at the ceiling height.


I booked a Christmas party at a new venue in Sydney that I have never decorated before. I neglected to do my homework on the venue specs, and where we would be able to set up at the venue.

I dropped Alicia and Wendy at the venue, wished them good luck and I raced off to collect the others who were at another job. To their credit, the girls managed to find the tiniest little area, and with time against them, they got it done.


When I returned the client loved it, and it took my breath away as I entered the room. I was amazed that such a simple concept could look so sensational.
I apologise that the photos do not do it justice.

Christmas Arch Outdoors ?

I was called by Forth Wall Events and they wanted a "Grand Entry" for their clients Christmas Party. It had to incorporate '80' because the client was celebrating 80 years in business in Australia. Also it was outdoors, so had to be able to withstand the elements..... The easy part of the brief was the 1000 balloon drop and confetti canons from the stage inside the marquee, but I'll do a blog for drops and confetti another time.



So we settled upon this design that fulfilled all the requirements. It was a very hot and windy day at Randwick racecourse early in December. We had to underinflate the balloons so they wouldn't burst in the heat, and we had to secure the frames of the almost 3mtr tall 80 sculpture so it wouldn't be blown over.

...Alicia would love to be able to give up balloons to be Australia's Next Top Model. Please no-one tell her I posted this pic.

A Masquerade Christmas

I love masquerade parties. A company came to me with some great ideas and the budget to make it a reality. They had hired out the dungeon of a castle for their event and every room was to have a different colour scheme and different designs.

At the entry we created some masquerade twisted towers.












The red room was to have funky top centrepieces.















The black room was to feature lots and lots of feathers.










...even on the floor bunches



















The blue room saw some topiary trees with feather highlights - add lots of blue lighting for effect.

















To finish the whole thing off we did some floor to ceilig columns. And of course all the designs had co-ordinating masks on them and lots of lights in the balloons.

An Evening with the Stars

The one thing I am quite proud of is the fact that over the years MAD Ballons has built a very loyal customer base. We do two functions a year for this client, and their Christmas party is always the highlight. This years theme was an evening with the stars - colours red, black and gold.
The only thing with loyal customers is that we need to give them something different for each of their events, and this event was no exception.


First up you need a grand entrance if there are going to be "stars" at the party. Each group of "stars" had their photos taken on the red carpet as they arrived, and our ballon rails were the perfect backdrop.

I LOVE the Masterbow Maker, and I got to have some serious fun for this years centrepieces. My deluxe masterbows are mounted on cakeboards and we add in lots of accessories for huge visual impact and interest. Each table had a number of these, depending on how big each group was.

We added 20" gold stars to each masterbow centrepiece and put the table numbers on the stars. This made it quick and easy for the guests to locate their tables. The red and gold boxes were personalised with their names, so they really felt like stars.

Once the formalities were done it was 'to the dancefloor' to bop the night away. "Dancing with the stars" ...sorry, bad pun.

"Take Flight"....into a new office space

I was called in to Microsoft to assist in the launch of their new offices and workspaces. Encouraging innovation in their staff they wantd them to 'take flight', and what better way to illustrate this theme than with balloons.



Using a number of sizes, from 16", 24" and 3' balloons, we set about the task. Also wanting their staff to bend their minds Microsoft required some "balloon bending".
I was having fun with this one. We used some 5.5' balloons for this purpose.



Then to the cafe area for some ceiling work. Not able to create the balloons in midair, we created an illusion of the ballons magically hanging up in the ceiling (no hooks and no helium involved here) to create a bit of a random, think outside the square and go with the flow effect.

You get a better idea of the cafe look from this picture. Taking flight and ideas cascading all over the place.

This is the only office photo that I can use here. Security. We had large 3' balloons placed through the offices as well as 250 of the yellow 15" single bubbles distributed to the workstations (not able to take photos of the workstations).
The installation was required to last for 2 weeks. No problems. I used Ultra Hi Float and most of it lasted three weeks.

Harry Potter Premiere

Midnight, 18th November and the much anticipated Harry Potter Deathly Hallows (pt 1) was released. For the Premiere event we were asked by Events Cinema's at Castle Towers to dress their cinema and also Gold Class for the event.



What better way to greet the many witches and wizards than an 11 metre Nagini (Voldemorts snake). Tickets could only be purchased once you passed underneath his watchful eyes. Careful now.

The event was absolutely huge. The cinema didn't want the Nagini's in place too early. As a result, some of the die hard Potter fans started arriving just as we were finishing off.

As you can see the Gold Class had cauldrons, brooms and even a polyjuice potion cocktail, especially devised for the event.

The cinema did a great job with their decor and the Nagini slithering above their guests was the finishing touch....and of course the local Harry Potter fans.

Many thanks to my friend and colleague John Martin from Balloons Funtastic in NZ, for giving me his "eel" design for this event.

I need an entry to WOW the audience!

The rock band Good Charlotte came to Sydney last November for one concert at Luna Park in the Big Top. The entry of the Big Top is a bit 'industrial' looking, so the client wanted to transform it to a WOW area. As well as transforming ugly to WOW, the client wanted to create a physical barrier to keep the audience away from the sound box and other AV and lighting equipment that was up the back.



The budget was not excessive, but we were able to create the WOW they were after using the fantastic 40" starpoints. We linked these together to create two 16 metre walls that fitted perfectly from floor to ceiling. It created the physical barrier as well as the WOW that was required.

The client was ecstatic with the finished product and the fact that we were on budget. She had looked at a number of other options but most were outside her strict budget.
As they say on the A-Team "I love it when a plan comes together!"