The perception is that multiple balloons figures take longer, but that’s not necessarily true. A poorly designed one balloon animal can take as long or longer then a well designed multiple balloon figure. If you are making one balloon swords, hearts, and poodles you can crank out one a minute. Yet, do you really want to be a vending machine? I don’t!
However, their are times when you find yourself in a situation that speed is critical, some quality must be sacrificed, and knowing what your capabilities are will help tremendously when it comes time to shut down a line. I can look at a line and based on what I am producing tell you how many people I can serve in an hour. If you don’t know your BMPH rate, then it will be difficult to judge time.
Knowing the BMPH helps when negotiating with the client at contract time. If the client tells you that they have 50 kids and they want 1 hour you can tell them…”One balloon swords, hearts, and quick dogs will be what you get. No frill, no real entertainment for your value. If you expand the time to two hours, you will get more bang for your buck.”
Many times I will tell the client, if you have a one hour time limit, you will need two balloon entertainers. The selection will be limited, but if you would like to expand consider increasing the time by a half-hour. This improves the quality of the balloon figures, giving wiggle room for more entertainment/interaction, insures every child will get a balloon, and over all make you look better.
Not knowing your BMPH makes it hard to really educate the client, plus it reduces guess work. Don’t let ego get in the way, don’t assume you can make 40 balloon figures in an hour. It’s tough. I have 30 years experience and it is difficult for me, and the older I get the harder it is to keep the high volume on a daily basis. Fingers, arms, and body get tired from long gigs, and really, it is more fun to produce quality then it is to simply crank out balloons.
tried to answer the last article with a really long reply and it disappered when I hit submit. hope ya got it
This is one of the most important thing any twister needs to know. I figured my BMPH years ago. I had to in order to end my line on time. I tend to end my line a little earlier than necessary. It allows me to make bigger and more impressive sculptures for the last few people in line. That way I get to be a little more creative and show off my skills. And I always make something HUGE for the last kid in line. I get to leave with a “bang”.