The Willow Glen Resident Entrepreneur looked up into the sky By Debbie Taylor-Hollis While thousands packed downtown a few weeks ago for the 17th annual San Jose Holiday parade, most people didn't have a clue about the amatuer detective work it took to launch some of those ballons. Twelve years ago, Toni McKay, founder and owner of Star Bound Entertainment, was a single mom with three college degrees who still couldn't make ends meet for herself and her daughter. The range of her jobs went from elementary teacher to mental health therapist, but even with lots of side jobs, there just wasn't enough to make ends meet. As she cast around her life for something worthwhile, wonderful and profitable, she looked upward--and got hooked on balloons. The professional balloon business in America is handled by a tight-knit, close-mouthed half-dozen family operations that provide every large parade and trade-show balloon exhibited. How those balloons are created is a trade secret with each of these firms, and there are no apprenticeship programs. So Toni McKay started doing detective work, for training's sake. Using every means possible, she got backstage and VIP passes behind the show for six consecutive years at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, just to watch every aspect of unloading, assembling and inflating the behemoths that grace the skies at outdoor celebrations. She took that surreptitious training, along with a knack for patterns and her natural artistic flair, and went back home to start up Star Bound Entertainments. "I was scared to death," she remembers, "when I went for my first job. I sold the balloons on spec. My first job was for Kaufman's in Pittsburgh 12 years ago. I took in my artwork and told them I could make their parade balloons." She got that first job--and still has the account with Kaufman's a dozen years later. Outdoor balloon craft isn't a well-publicized art. "It's mostly trade secrets. I can tell you that a 50-foot balloon [such as San Jose's own Felix the Cat or the Toy Soldier] takes more than 200 yards of rubberized vinyl to make." The material, loomed especially for balloons so it can stretch without leaking air, comes in huge bolts which are then cut just like any sewing pattern. "We don't sew it, though--the holes would leak. Instead, we heat-seal the seams" to hold the approximately 5,000 cubic feet of helium that go into each balloon. "It takes 10 to 12 weeks to make a balloon, and we have over 200 in inventory now. Our biggest show is the Stamford, Connecticut, show with 26 balloons." Toni's most viewed balloons, however, are those she has created for the Orange Bowl Parade and the Kentucky Derby. "I want to do London. My daughter was on the Web just last night finding the phone number for a show we want to do over there." With self-motivation and such show-stopping creations as the 55-foot-tall Skating Santa provided by Starbound Entertainment for this year's holiday parade, there's no telling where you might next see Toni's work. After spending six years sneaking behind the scenes to get her training, there's no stopping her now. Debbie Taylor-Hollis is a frequent contributor to the Willow Glen Resident. [ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Willow Glen Resident, December 30, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.