Airing It Out, for Fun and Profit

Wendy Adler twisted the nights away in college--but not on the dance floor.

Armed with dozens of brightly colored balloons, a tiny air pump and a personality built for entertainment, Adler earned tips at restaurants, twisting and turning the pumped-up tubes into fantastic forms, from cute and cuddly to somewhat risque.

Today, Adler’s skill has inflated her business, Balloonabilities, which places balloon twisters in restaurants, stores and private parties across five states. Adler was a student at University of the Pacific when she began twisting balloons four nights a week at a Stockton restaurant.

Working only for tips, she found that balloon-made birds, bears and the ever-popular pregnant poodle, plus a wacky personality, really pumped up her earnings.

After graduation, she worked at a San Francisco talent agency for six months, but hated it. The idea of her own business took shape and in 1990 she gathered a handful of other twisters--she likes to call them “balloonologists”--to form Balloonabilities, running it out of her San Francisco studio apartment.

Business has, er, ballooned nicely.

With a roster today of about 150 balloonologists and four full-time staffers, Adler, who is married to a banker, runs the recently incorporated company from an office in her West Hills home. Restaurants and other customers pay a management fee for access to her roster of twisters, who operate in California, Arizona, Colorado, Washington and Tennessee.

About 70% of her placement is in restaurants, Adler said, and she has about 80 regular weekly restaurant clients across the country, most of them chains such as Tony Roma’s, Coco’s and T.G.I Friday’s.

But she also sends twisters floating off to corporate parties, bar mitzvahs, school carnivals, charity fund-raisers, trade shows, store openings, even high school grad nights. Balloon magic, she said, cuts across every age group.

“A lot of restaurants mistakenly tag us as children’s entertainment, but we can also do a mean happy hour,” Adler said.

When working private parties, twisters get $75 to $100 an hour, but at restaurants, they work only for tips, which average about $1 to $3 per table. Working three- to four-hour shifts, mostly weekend evenings, twisters can pull in $10 to $40 an hour, depending on how busy the restaurant is and the personality of the twister.

Some holidays, such as Mother’s Day, may require double or triple shifts, or even two or three twisters at one time.

It’s hard to make a living twisting, but it’s great as a supplement, twisters agreed.

“People are generous when you play with their kids,” said Dennis Tracy, an actor who cheerfully admits that he is probably Adler’s oldest twister at age 59.

Adler declined to disclose her company’s revenues, but said the company has never operated in the red and has benefited from low overhead--since she runs the business out of her home.

Two employees who work in the San Francisco Bay Area (also out of their homes) coordinate the twister schedules for restaurants in California and Washington.

The business grew outside California because several of the chain restaurants that used Balloonabilities here had outlets in other Western states, Adler said. It further expanded into Tennessee when the worker who handled Colorado and Arizona restaurants moved there, she said.

The managers get salaries and bonuses as their markets expand. They handle scheduling, meet clients, interview twisters and ensure quality control. A fourth employee works as an assistant to Adler in her home office.

Starting out, Adler said, she used a small inheritance from her grandfather to live on.

“I blew through my savings while getting the business up and running, but I never had to ask for money from anyone,” she said. “By the time that money was gone, the business was supporting itself.”

The business worked, she said, “because it is a flexible business. The more volume I had, the more I could spend in operating expenses.”

And as her client base increased, “I could be more aggressive in marketing and pricing. With volume, you can give greater discounts.”

For years, college students were the staples of Adler’s stable.

“Balloon twisting is the ideal job for college students,” she said. “The hours are flexible, you work three to four hours a night, you have instant cash and it’s fun and social.”

But because colleges today use a more expensive computer job track service instead of the old placement office bulletin listing, she said, her ads don’t stand out enough to be worth the cost, and she is finding it tougher to find workers. Twister turnover is high, she said, and balloonologists often fly off on their own after a brief stint with her. But, she said, they don’t realize how much work goes into management and marketing skills. And restaurateurs often don’t see the value of her service until they use it.

“Reliability and quality control is part of our worth,” she said.

Adler’s best customers are family-style restaurants, where waiters said the performers help calm hungry children and make their jobs easier.

“The balloons help take the attention off of waiting for food,” explained Chris Padavick, general manager at the Red Robin restaurant in Calabasas, who has been using Balloonabilities for three years. “It gives [children] something to occupy their time and it fits in well with our family image.”

Balloon twisters “enhance the whole family dining experience,” agreed Mark Damico, regional manager for several Chevys Mexican restaurants in the Valley and a nine-year Balloonabilities fan. “It’s part of the reason why families come in.”

Harried waiters sometimes feel as if “the cavalry has arrived” when the balloon person walks in the door, Damico added.

Initially, Adler said, the waiters may resist twisters, fearing the balloon people will cut into their tips.

“But if management tells the staff how to use us as ambassadors to keep the kids occupied while they wait for their food or for a table, or to appease a table [of hungry diners], then everyone is happy,” she said.

Adler said personality, not skill, makes the twister. Tracy readily agrees--in fact, a recent acting gig had him playing “the world’s worst balloon twister” on the TV show “Parenthood.”

“But he’s a riot,” Adler said of the actor. “He’s very personable and people adore him.”

It’s not so much how well you can make a teddy bear or a motorcycle, Tracy said, but how well you perform and make people happy.

“The fun,” he said, “is in the sizzle, not the steak.”