The Balloon Head Lady

Some years ago, well over ten or so, I was hired to VJ (Video Jockey) at a City of Vincent council event called Café Culture which attempted to create a festival type occasion to promote local art through local businesses in Mt Lawley. The particular project I was hired for needed me to provide imagery to go along with the music of a local electronic outfit. I VJ’d a lot and was familiar with this type of show. The gig was held at the Astor Cinema, so I had an entire cinema screen to project upon as the music was performed live in front on a small stage.

The gig was kicking off at 6pm and we all got there early enough to set up and sound check. The event was supervised by a council representative a lady in her 40’s who was very nice but had quite a naive sense about her.

Doors opened and I ran some music and video as we waited for people to arrive. Some time went by and still no one showed up. After a while it was clear we weren’t going to get an audience, so I approached the council lady and she agreed something had to be done. Well, given the fact the event wasn’t well promoted I wasn’t surprised no one showed up but I was curious to find out what she was planning to do to resolve this issue?

She called over her young assistant and gave her some money and requested she return with some items from the IGA down the street.

The assistant returned with a bag of coloured party balloons, sticky tape and a permanent marker. I thought ok she’s going to make signs and put them outside hoping to attract people into the venue? Nope. This lady and her assistant blew up all the balloons, drew smiley faces on them and then no bullshit stuck them to the top of the chairs in the front rows. She turned around to us with a big smile and exclaimed “there, now it looks like there’s an audience!”.

Um what the fuck? The first thing I thought of is how much is she getting paid?

We played our sets to balloon heads, packed up and waited too long to get paid.

Fuckwits are favoured.