George Strait finale balloon drop

June 7^th “the cowboy road away” at the AT&T Stadium the home of the Dallas cowboys. DFW was the final show of George Strait’s tour.

One week before the event, we were contacted to do the balloon drop for his ending song. This drop had to be big, epic, and unforgettable. Go big or go home, in true Texas style.

 The event planner was concerned about the time it would take the balloons to hit the ground from a 300 feet tall ceiling. My balloon crew together with the event planner came up with an idea to do a mini drop four days before the show using one 50’ long bag. This was the best way to time how long it would take for the first balloon to hit the ground, and also to estimate the total balloons needed for the balloon drop.

 It took 1:30 minutes for the normal sizes balloons and 1:00 minute for the 3’ giant balloons to fall. For this stadium, we decided to use 16,000 balloons.

I only had three days to make this happen. Production was now in high gear. My Balloon City crew started making the bags and stocking the balloons while I worked on logistics. I needed to put together a crew of balloon professionals to help inflate the balloons. I assembled 10 people using 4 other balloon companies from as far away as Houston. Having a great crew is key to a successful event. The crew was awesome and inflated all 16,000 balloons in less time than I have calculated. With that major part finished the only thing left was to rig them in the catwalk.

 The next day, I only needed to move the bags into place on the ground and make sure the riggers installed them correctly. After a lot of standing around and waiting everything was rigged and ready for the sound check.

Now for me there was nothing left to do but wait until the next night to enjoy the show. I had a guest pass that allowed me full access! I felt so special parking with the tour buses, with my own entrance and being able to go wherever I wanted. There was over 100,000 people that attended the George Strait concert. That is more people than the population of my hometown!

The concert was great and the timing of the finale was perfect. The promoter found me on the stage floor to tell me the balloon drop was epic! Epic is good!

Check it out for yourself: VIDEO