At VIP Balloons we love a challenge and recently we were challenged to make some free standing walls of balloons to form part of a maze in London’s Battersea Park for the RNLI’s Splash Fest.
On Sunday 7 August 2016, London saw it’s first family-friendly water-filled obstacle course is taking over Battersea Park. Splash Fest was a wild, wet and wonderful highlight of the school holidays. Set on a 2.5KM trail, Splash Fest was made up of five awesomely fun aqua challenges and obstacles included the geyser-spouting Wild Wild Waters, the slippery speed of Slip-Slide Stream and, of course, the Bubbly Brook Maze.
Guests were invited to step into a magical maze, with music, bubbles, foam-spouting creatures and surprising characters at every corner. They explored the labyrinth of fun and then discover the giant bubble show on the bandstand at the centre.
An RNLI spokesman said: “We hope everyone who joined us has gone home with some great memories and has also found out a bit more about the lifesaving work of the RNLI and picked up some top tips for staying safe around water this summer.”
The Lifeboat Institute has three stations in London; Tower, Chiswick and Teddington. Though most of the stations operated by the RNLI run on a volunteer staff, Tower and Chiswick are the exception, with a permanent staff working 12 hour shifts backed up by 150 volunteers in order to maintain the on call commitment for the capital.
But how was the maze of balloons created? Well it all started many weeks beforehand by Ipswich based Balloon Artist, Samuel Stamp-Dod. Using a special type of balloon created by Qualatex called a Quicklink.
“These balloons have an extra bit of latex at the end, enabling me to join them together to form chains.” explained Samuel, “Once I have several chains, these can then be linked to build wall, structures and event sculptures”.
VIP Balloons took over a church hall in Ipswich, to inflate over 2000 balloons and construct the walls a few days prior to the event.
“As you can see, the balloons covered the whole of the floor of the hall before we joined them all together” Samuel goes on to say, “We spend several hours inflating and tying knots before we could then start the build”.
Once the walls had been created in Suffolk, they were partly dismantles and loaded onto the back of a lorry to arrive in central London to be rebuilt early on the day of the event.
A few hours later the walls were reconstructed and placed between fake hedges, hay bails and picket fences and the fun could begin!
If you have an event lined up and would like to add in something a little special, why not set VIP Balloons your own challenge! Please contact us today!
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