How the DNC Pulled Off That Colossal Balloon Drop

The inflation team showed up at 7:30 am yesterday. By the time they left well into the evening, 100,000 balloons were ready to descend from the heights of the Wells Fargo Arena, drowning the Democratic party’s presidential nominee and upper crust in a sea of star-spangled latex.

Balloon drops like the one that closed out the Democratic National Convention last night are commonplace by now; they’ve graced political conventions as far back as 1932. That doesn’t make them any less spectacular, though. Or any easier to coordinate. Pulling it off takes a team of wranglers and riggers, all working together to execute a balloon visionary’s master plan.

And the DNC's spectacle this year was particularly grand. It even incorporated a bevy of giant, 36-inch diameter balloons---a first for any convention, according to Roseann DeFalco, one of the balloon professionals on the inflation squad---several of which attracted the attention of Bill Clinton.

“There were about nine of us professionals, as well as a few college kids that helped,” says DeFalco, who’s been in the balloon business for about a decade. Her shop, The Balloon Boss, which has created balloon displays for high-profile clients like The Real Housewives of New Jersey and Chelsea Lately, was one of several tapped to work a 12-plus-hour day making sure the DNC’s was fit to burst. They worked under the direction of noted balloon maestro Treb Heining, who runs GlassHouse Balloon Company and also orchestrated the balloon drop at last week's Republican National Convention--and has for the past 30 years.

Coordinating a drop on the scale of the DNC’s requires a methodical approach. It’s the kind of job, as you might expect, that has to be done on-site, which means the balloon squad’s first step was to commandeer a section of the arena's mezzanine.

“We had inflation stations where there were four or five of us in a group blowing them up, tying them up, throwing them into a funnel” that dumped out into a series of nets, DeFalco says. “It was a constant buzzing of the machines. Some of the people that weren’t professionals didn’t tie as fast, so we’d be tying and they’d be throwing it into the tunnel.”

There are dozens of these nets, each of which holds 2,000 balloons, says DeFalco. Those are then secured by a rigging team, and released with a simple pull of a string. Having lots of smaller parcels helps minimize the chance of a misfire, which is good, because there’s no Plan B. “There’s really not a backup,” says DeFalco. “There were so many, even if one or two didn’t work, you still had another 50 or 60 nets. The average person wouldn’t notice.”

What the average person did notice? That this year’s DNC drop seemed significantly larger than the RNC’s last week.

DeFalco is quick to dismiss any suggestion of friendly balloon rivalry between political parties, However. For one, she's quick to point out that Heining and his company designed both displays. For another, that’s just not how the balloon biz works.

“[In] the balloon nation, we have a nice camaraderie with everyone,” says DeFalco. “There was definitely no balloon industry rivalry… We’re all friends. You’re excited when someone gets a gig like this.”

DeFalco’s unsure of the total cost of the drop, but she does admire that the DNC didn’t skimp on balloon quality, an all too common occurrence in these large-scale situations. But you can get a sense of the cost when you consider that each of the 100,000 balloons costs about a dime, and of course, additional funds are needed to pay dozens of people to inflate, rig, and later, pop them.

As for that clean-up, DeFalco wasn’t around. She preferred the view back home in New Jersey. Or more specifically, she preferred the company. “I have a granddaughter. We were watching it last night, and she stayed up. It’s part of history,” says DeFalco of Clinton's nomination. “I was explaining to my granddaughter how great it would be to tell her grandchildren one day. It was just an awesome thing to be part of.”