Jokes are flying, balloons are swirling, and the crowd is enchanted like the pied piper playing his magical pipe. You hand the child the balloon and two minutes later, you her “Bang-Bang,” the beloved character, had been unwound and transformed crudely into a gun. A little girl whimpers because you forgot the put in her favorite color, which she tells you about after completing the balloon figure. The children cannot make up their minds, but you lose your mind while waiting for them to decide. When they finally make a decision, you hear the mother say, “What color would you like it?”
We aim to entertain our tiny customers and forget what drives them to say “wow” quickly fades. Patrick Van de Ven, a balloon artist out of the Netherlands, introduced me to this video. Watch how they fight to get the child’s attention, but look what wins out at the end.
Video is no longer available.
Razzle and dazzle work to a point, but the key is to understand what the child wants. Save the razzle and dazzle for the adults; they need it more than the kids.