23rd November 2016
Way back in January Bloon were asked by the organisers of Hamley Toy Parade to review all of their giant parade balloons. Their previous supplier failed to produce balloons that would fly or stay inflated. This left many people rather frustrated and embarrassed. From the outset, it was clear that Bloon’s superior knowledge of inflatables and event management was going to be of huge help in putting together the worlds biggest toy parade.
During the next 10 months, Bloon worked constantly on this project designing and building a total of 9 fantastic helium-filled parade balloons. Dealing with various stakeholders ranging from BBC to Sony. Each balloon was bespoke designed to the client’s exacting requirements, whilst trying to maintain the tone of the event being fun and festive. Some of the parade balloons were built to replicate toys. These are particularly difficult to produce as they especially need to be faithful representations of the items as not to cause any confusion.
Bloon provided nearly 50 members of staff to operate the balloons down Regent Street in London. Including our specialist balloon managers. We also managed all health and safety liaising with the Westminster City Councils health and safety team.
In total, nearly 5 tons of equipment were delivered to the site including some 100 cubic meters of helium to inflate all of the balloons.
The bloonists had a very early start at 5:30 am in Golden Square, London ready to inflate all the balloons. The main issue on the day itself was the yellow weather warning from storm Angus, Despite this, the 3-hour setup and inflation of the balloons went without issue and at 10:30 am the balloons headed onto one of the most famous streets in the capital in Infront of nearly 1 million spectators the balloons were paraded up the street in front of Hamleys Toy Store before then being placed on static display for the rest of the day.
Several balloons stole the show, however, Mr Stay Puft from the Ghostbusters franchise garnered the most attention from the media.
The whole event was a huge success and planning is already underway for Hamley Toy Parade 2017.
