Balloons Gone Wild

Summary

Elizabeth Irwin, founder of Pop of Color AZ and one of Phoenix's serious balloon artists, walks Rachel through eight years from a homemade 12-foot garland for her daughter's first birthday to professional installations the industry treats as art, not decor. The standout stories: USC eight-foot balloon letters for a major donor family hosting the band before the Fiesta Bowl, which drooped in direct April sunlight, popped, and ended in a 100% refund the client accepted graciously. Plus a U-Haul with the door unlatched and a mattress bag of balloons rolling across the freeway.

Key takeaways

1. First time takes two weeks, hundredth time takes thirty minutes — Elizabeth's first 12-foot garland for her daughter took a week and a half of hand-inflating with a hand pump and tying with ribbon. Now it's 30 minutes. The professional rate prices the craft, not the hour.
2. Eight-foot letters are a welding problem, not a balloon problem — A USC band installation needed letters bigger than anyone in the industry had built. PVC plus conduit, three weeks of testing. Direct April sunlight still won. Some asks are physical engineering, not party planning.
3. Latch the door before you merge — Elizabeth merged onto the freeway with a U-Haul full of pre-inflated balloons and the door unlatched. The whole mattress bag rolled across the Papago Mountains. She still made setup 30 minutes late, with the party not yet started.
4. The grocery-store bag is not the comparison — 90% of Elizabeth's clients come to her after trying their own garland. The industry hides pricing on purpose. Balloons are floral pricing, plumber pricing, artist pricing. She quotes the artistry, not the rubber.
5. A 10K install can be a gift to the next client — Elizabeth once had a $10-15K design done, with a kid's birthday party right after. She offered the next mom the install. The Frozen theme didn't match, so it popped, but the moment lives in every master class she teaches.

Transcript

00:00 With over 33 years in the mobile bartending and service industry, he is the guy who brings the party and the joy wherever he goes. She's a seasoned event planner and producer with more than 20 years of experience in sports, corporate, nonprofit, and private events. Together we are Hot Mics, Cold Drinks and Untold Disasters of the wild, hilarious and unforgettable moments in the world of events.

00:27 This is the Event Talk podcast with Dave and Rachel.

00:31 Hi everybody. Thank you for joining the Event Talk podcast today. Hot mics, cold drinks and untold disasters. We are here with Elizabeth Irwin. I'm super excited — I feel like we've become friends over the years, she's always my go-to call. She's got a company called Pop of Color AZ. She does amazing balloon art. It's art, it's not just decor. Every time you do the same event for me, every single year you come in and you're that much better. Welcome to the Event Talk podcast.

01:18 Thank you guys for having me, I'm excited. And then Dave, we have a mocktail today don't we. We do. Today's mocktail — watermelon and lime, made by Steph of Poor Masters. Cheers. Welcome. It tastes like candy — a sweet, like Starburst, but healthier. Next time we'll add vodka and see if it tastes like candy.

02:36 So what got you into balloons? Because you're sort of new at it, but yet you're a veteran. I started my business officially about four and a half years ago — February of 2021, fresh out of COVID. But I've been working with balloons for almost eight years. I stumbled into it because I had just had our first daughter and started planning her first birthday. I'd seen these beautiful organic balloon designs on Pinterest, and nobody in Arizona was really doing it. So I went to YouTube and watched a few videos.

03:38 What's a garland? A garland is like a balloon arch, but typically much more organic in shape, with multiple different sizes of balloons. That first 12-foot garland for her birthday — a 12-foot garland now takes me 30 minutes. That first one took me between a week and a half and two weeks. I was hand-inflating every individual balloon with a hand pump and tying it together with ribbon. My poor husband was like, why did you start this?

05:04 I found some weird love of it. I was still working my corporate job, then we got pregnant with our second daughter. January 2020 I left my job to be a stay-at-home mom. It was wonderful until March 2020, when the entire world closed down. Then I was like, really a stay-at-home mom, in my house 24/7 with my one-and-a-half-year-old spicy daughter and very largely pregnant.

06:35 January 2021 I really needed something for myself again. My husband said, why don't you just create an LLC, it's a great way to write off taxes. That was the entire reason. I had not stayed up to date on the balloon industry. It was the perfect time to start a business — a lot of companies went out of business because they didn't adapt. Most bar services started because they lost their job at the bar. After COVID there were 30 new bartending services.

07:34 The balloon industry blew up — no pun intended. It took off during COVID because people couldn't have their real parties, so they were doing drive-by baby showers, decorating the front yard. I was getting in on that right as it started to go up.

08:17 Weirdest platform somebody wanted balloons on — cars, walls, grass. We talked about a big dog at one point. I tried it yesterday — it's a big dog on a leash, like the balloon dogs but bigger. I don't twist. Craziest setup design — this one will forever be a painful memory. A repeat client whose family are big USC donors got to host the entire band at their house for the Fiesta Bowl. She wanted eight-foot balloon letters to spell out USC behind the band.

09:55 In my head this is easy. It was very much a problem. Nobody I can find has done letters that big — the tallest I've seen is about six feet. Past six feet it's incredibly difficult unless you're a welder. I rigged up PVC pipe plus conduit. The U was fine, the S and C started to droop. It took 2-3 weeks of testing. I did the whole setup, left, and an hour later — direct sunlight, April — she called: all the balloons are popping. I blew up a bunch more, went back, made it look as nice as possible. I ended up giving her a 100% refund because I felt so awful. She was incredibly kind — she supports women-owned businesses. That's the act of God, right.

13:35 Ultimate balloon fail — the other one that sticks out: I was on my way to a setup with a U-Haul completely filled with pre-inflated balloons. I get on the freeway and realize I hadn't latched the door. People are honking. I look in the mirror and see a giant king-sized mattress bag filled with balloons rolling across the freeway. People slamming on their brakes. It's somewhere in the Papago Mountains still to this day. I had to turn around, go home, re-inflate 20 feet of balloons, and still make it. About 30 minutes late, but the party hadn't started.

15:57 Wildest request — the USC was interesting. You requested an eight-foot dog on a leash. Old fashioned at the bar — probably, it'd have to be big. Balloons that are pieces of what we see in everyday life — not just an arch, it's a drink, a dog. The ice cream cones kicked that off.

16:53 I'm pretty new to sculptures — about a year and a half. One of the first things I did that you'd consider a sculpture is balloon bows. That USC client initially asked me to do a bow. Every year her daughter picks basically the same theme, and every year I do a bigger balloon bow on a bigger bounce house.

18:11 Largest balloon — they make balloons that fill up like six feet. Big shiny balls, created by an artist — foil, eight feet tall and wide. The biggest latex balloon you can easily get is a 36-inch, three feet. There's a woman in Russia who holds a bunch of helium balloons in a big ball gown and floats into the sky — probably $30,000. No baby gets in.

20:34 Faces or portraits — it would take getting the portrait and planning every different balloon, color and size. You can attach things to balloons — bows, pearls, diamonds. Real diamonds, Dave, that's where the $30,000 floating you on a chair comes from. You can put confetti, water and flowers inside, then pop the balloon.

21:26 No-budget bucket list — first, balloons on a jet. Some people just put balloons on the stair handle, that's not what I want. I want them literally on the jet. They sell jets, helicopters and sports cars at this place. Second, Christmas tree trimming — I make balloons that look like actual ornaments. I want to do Christmas trees for Nordstrom.

23:06 You teach other people — Balloon University, plus in-person master classes. We did a probably 10-to-$15,000 design together at a venue space, and there was a birthday party right after. We didn't want to pop it. I called the owner — do you want to ask the other client if they'd want it? The other event was a little girl's birthday, theme frozen, so her mom didn't want it. To this day the people in that master class still talk about it.

25:12 There's a thing you can get with a ton of spikes on it — you go around and pop them all. Talk about getting some anger issues out. We did a balloon pop once and all she had was a pair of scissors — pop, pop, pop. She's like, I'm never doing that again. The candle people who do our parties walk around with one of those air things.

26:46 Things I wish planners and clients knew — the cost of these things. As soon as you say balloons, the first thing somebody thinks is, I'm not spending thousands, I can get a bag at the grocery store for ten bucks. 90% of my clients come to me because they tried their own garland and it was the worst thing ever. Our industry is incredibly secretive about pricing — balloon professionals don't want competitors to know what they're charging. I'm single-handedly trying to take that challenge on. It's like floral — you're paying for the artistry. The plumber's there 15 minutes, says it's a thousand bucks, because he's studied it for 30 years.

30:57 Physicality — I barely go to the gym anymore, it's my gym. Carrying heavy things — stack drives, weights, big ladders, up and down over and over. You carry the big bags of balloons in really weird weight. It is incredibly physical. Thank you so much for joining us today. Never a dull day — the balloon space never deflates. Like, subscribe, follow, all the things.

33:10 Thanks for tuning in to the Event Talk podcast — Hot Mics, Cold Drinks and Untold Disasters where every event has a story. A big thank you to our guests for their laughs, stories, and lessons. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share with your fellow event pros. Until next time.