This week on BMTV we are joined by Benny Balloon who is attempting a world record for the largest balloon sculpture made by an individual. You might remember making a big pink monster this time last year that Greg wore on the hottest day of the year! Well, after that show Cineworld got in touch with Ben to ask him to help advertise some of their films. He made a giant octopus for Finding Dory which he realised afterwards wasn’t that far off the world record! So that gave him an idea!

Ben has to beat the record of a 72ft bat and the design ben has chosen is a whopping 100ft waterfall. He is making it mostly out of Quicklink balloons with some 260Q details at the bottom. Ben even makes a representation of our very own Greg who sits fishing in a boat at the bottom. Ben made all the detail first and then created sections of rock face to support the structure. He is allowed to use supporting wire as long as this is covered by balloons. He assembles the structure in The Brooks shopping and has to use a cherry-picker to get up high enough to secure it. He then inflates and ties together strings of blue Quicklinks to make the water. These are then tied to the top and the bottom to compete the piece.

Although ben’s final 111ft design beats the previous record of 72ft, he hasn’t got official confirmation from Guinness yet. He had to film the whole inflation by time-lapse to show that he did it on his own. He also had to get eyewitness statements and a surveyor report and send this all off to Guinness and they get in touch with him to tell him if he’s got it or not!

It’s great if benny gets the record but the real reason he has undertaken this challenge is to launch his new business: Ludicrous Balloons! This is largely aimed at corporate décor instead of children’s entertaining and Ben has received a lot of great publicity and advertising by appearing in all the local papers and even a few national ones as well as national radio stations. So a great marketing move for Ben and we wish him all the luck with the new business and hope he gets the record!

Rob

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