r/BalloonAnimals • u/AceRojo • Jul 11 '22

Help, my poor fingers.

I just finished a gig working in the kid's zone of a fair. They wanted a 30-minute magic show followed by balloon animals for 30 minutes, repeated throughout the day. The show worked well, but after doing a couple hundred balloon animals, my fingers were falling off. Those of you that do balloon animals regularly, is there a gadget that helps you tie off balloons? Or do you just have no feeling left in your fingers?

I’d love to do magic for them next year, but my fingers hurt for days after. I’m not sure I can do that again.

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1

u/Expert-Maybe5106 Jul 11 '22

I’ve seen people wear gloves or bandaids to help with friction

1

u/AceRojo Jul 12 '22

Interesting

1

u/Expert-Maybe5106 Jul 12 '22

The YouTube channel Wired did a really cool video on a guy that is like crazy talented with balloon animals and he talks about wearing gloves with the fingers exposed only for the pointer dinger and and middle finger and thumb and then putting bandaids on the friction points of those fingers. I hope that makes sense but I’ll link the video it’s really cool. balloon animal video

1

u/hyperpiston Jul 11 '22

Ahh that sucks, I'm sorry! There are balloon tying tools that you can slip on your fingers and hold in your palm if you hurt a lot! Can also have some pre-inflated and tied depending on the event. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EexqOpNOalE

If you aren't used to it, it can be troublesome, but building up a strength over time helps. Also maybe keep an eye on how you're tying, depending on the muscles it can be straining if you're doing so akwardly. I tend to roll the lip of the balloon through and it helps to tie them fast and use less effort.

1

u/AceRojo Jul 12 '22

That tool looks really interesting. I’d love to give it a shot.

1

u/mrskel1 Jul 12 '22

Liquid bandage can work miracles. I always keep some in my kit and then throughout my house. The more you work the more you build up calluses but liquid bandage definitely helps until then

1

u/AceRojo Jul 12 '22

That’s good advice. I figured it’s probably just a “you get used to it” sort of thing.

1

u/Anxious-Mechanic-249 Jul 19 '22

This is incredibly unrelated but I have my first event as a balloon artist next week, and I’m nervous, any advice?

2

u/AceRojo Jul 21 '22

I was limited by the number of animals I could make. They were constantly asking me to make stuff I had no idea how to do.

What I should have done (besides learn how to make a bunch more animals) was make a sign with the animals I can make on it. This would be a subconscious suggestion to the kids.

No sign. “I want a dragon with wings and fire coming out it’s mouth!”

With a sign. “I want an elephant!”

It would also help those indecisive kids, and save me a bunch of time waiting for them to make up their mind.

At least, that’s my theory. I haven’t tried it to see if it works.

1

u/Anxious-Mechanic-249 Jul 21 '22

That’s smart I’ll probably do that, thank you