Minnie Mouse, Spider-man go large: How Macy's parade balloons are made and controlled
Part of a Thanksgiving Day tradition as ubiquitous as turkey and football, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade makes its way through the streets of New York City this Thursday with its signature fare of marching bands, Radio City Rockettes, ornate floats, pop stars and, of course, Santa Claus.
But one attraction dating back to the fourth Macy's parade in 1927 soars over them all — the giant character balloons. Designed and built in-house by artists and engineers with Macy's Studio, each year's balloon lineup captures a mix of classic and new characters in pop culture and entertainment. Some balloons vary in size but can exceed the length of a couple of school buses.
"There's a balance of legacy character and iconic character and new characters that are interesting and appealing to our young audience," said Will Coss, executive producer of Macy's Studio. "We like to say we have an audience age of 1 to 100 and our goal in any one of our balloon production windows is to ensure we have a little something for everyone."
What are the new balloons in this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?
This year's parade will feature six new characters among the fleet of 17 balloons, including the debut of Minnie Mouse and a new incarnation of Spider-Man.
In past parades, balloons have included Mickey Mouse, Uncle Sam, Underdog, Dora the Explorer, Kermit the Frog and many others. The decisions on what characters get the giant balloon treatment are made with a mix of internal conversations and partnerships with studios and agencies that own the characters.
"[Macy's] has a very good, long history of finding that right balance of iconic characters and introducing the world to some new characters that have had some fantastic staying power," Coss said.
How big are the Macy's parade balloons?
Balloons range in size and shape, depending on the character and the pose created. The Minnie Mouse balloon debuting this year is 60 feet in height — roughly as tall as a five-story building — and 34 feet wide, about the width of five taxi cabs.
Spider-man is longer, measuring 77.5 ft. from front to back, which is nearly the length of two standard New York City transit buses.
This is the third Spider-Man balloon in the parade's history — the previous two versions of the web-slinger appeared from 1987 to 1998; and 2009 to 2014.
One of the largest balloons featured in the parade was the third edition of Superman, a 104-foot-long giant built by Goodyear that debuted in 1980 and flew eight seasons through the 1987 parade.
How are the Macy's Parade balloons made?
From initial character design to its final flight test on Balloon Day, the production process of a character balloon can take anywhere from 6-8 months and involve as many as 30 people. Floats featured in the parade follow roughly the same production time.
In the case of this year's Spider-man balloon, the design phase began in late January and continued through early May, when production and assembly began. The balloon had its first test flight in September.
During the design phase, artists present a number of possible poses and styles for the balloon character, all with an eye towards the balloon's aerodynamics and maneuverability with the handlers.
Once these sketches are complete, the studio's balloon and engineering department reviews the poses to ensure the character's ability to move as a balloon.
"[The engineering department] works through areas that need to be 'balloonified,'" Coss said. "We pride ourselves on being as character-correct as possible, but with 60-to 70- foot giant character balloons flying in the sky, they have to be aerodynamic and be able to navigate the elements."
After all of the changes to the balloon design have been approved, the studio makes a 24- to 30-inch 3D "white model" of the balloon, which is then used to create the patterns that make up the full size balloons. Once the patterns are made, they're flattened out and digitally printed. Like a giant quilt, the durable fabric sections — including the public-facing outer pieces and the internal chamber walls that hold pockets of helium — are stitched together by hand, then those sections are assembled into the whole balloon.
Once assembled, artist do a final pass over the balloon, adding character features, shadowing and other details. The balloon is then ready for a battery of indoor and outdoor test flights and inflation and deflation testing.
When fully deflated, an average character balloon weighs anywhere from 500 to 700 pounds — roughly the weight of a baby grand piano. The Spider-Man balloon weighs around 640 pounds when deflated.
But the principles that can lift that kind of weight work exactly the same way as a small helium birthday balloon on a string — only with a lot more helium involved (large balloons can exceed 10,000 cubic feet of helium). Helium is lighter than air, and the filled balloons displace heavier air to create lift. A team of handlers on the ground guide the balloon with tethers.
At the parade, handlers wear themed costumes that match the balloon they're handling. For Spider-man, handlers will wear custom tabards resembling Spidey's torso and knitted caps with his face.
The Spider-man balloon has 61 handling lines but will involve nearly 100 handlers on Thanksgiving Day to allow handlers to rotate and take breaks as needed.
What is the route of the parade?
On Wednesday — the day before the parade — crews begin inflating and staging the balloons between 81st and 77th streets around the American Museum of Natural History. At 8:30 a.m. Thursday morning, following a ribbon-cutting, the parade embarks on a 2.5-mile route south along Central Park, east on 59th Street to 6th Avenue. From there, the parade heads south to 34th Street, where it turns west for its final performance for the national NBC telecast in front of the historic Macy's entrance.
"Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is the only place where you can fly 60- to 70-foot balloons through the streets and canyons of New York City between skyscrapers and around corners to an electric crowd of three-and-a-half million people," said Coss, who is preparing to work on his fourth parade. "It's not every day when you can shut down two-and-a-half miles of New York City and fly these great characters through the streets of Manhattan."
While this year's parade marks 100 years since the first parade, it's the 98th parade. The event was canceled 1942 to 1944 during World War II, when collection drives called for materials — like the rubber used in producing the balloons — for the war effort.
Contributing: Paste BN reporter Felecia Wellington Radel; Ramon Padilla
SOURCES Macy's Studio; Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Wiki