“A party’s not a party without balloons”

Wendy’s Partyshop

Three years ago - in September 2015 - Wendy’s Partyshop opened its doors in Nevele, East Flanders. Among other things, the shop offers masks, hats, wigs, complete fancy dress costumes, party materials... and of course balloons. We wanted to know more about these last-mentioned items.

“Ever since the business started out, balloon sales have been rising. In particular, printed balloons are doing remarkably well. “‘A party’s not a party without balloons,’ I often hear my customers say. And I can’t say they’re wrong”, says Partyshop manager, Wendy Van Vlaenderen with a laugh. “We sell a lot of balloons for baby showers, communions and weddings, and they are popular with youth groups, sports clubs and also companies, who don’t just use them just for festivities, but for photo shoots too.”

Cloudbusters requested

During our interview, an urgent phone call comes in: Dirk Stoops from the radio station Studio Brussel is doing a DJ set at the Ghent Festival (Gentse Feesten) the following day and wants to order some “cloudbusters” - XXL balloons a metre in diameter to be bounced around above the audience’s heads. Later, we heard that Wendy’s Partyshop did in fact succeed in delivering the giant balloons within 24 hours. Mission accomplished!

If the event in question is one of the larger ones, like the Ghent Festival - the last edition attracted no fewer than 1.3 million visitors - or KV Oostende football club fan day, the Wendy’s Partyshop team arranges for the required balloons to be inflated on site. But in most cases, customers pick up the uninflated balloons at the shop and inflate them at the party location themselves. To achieve this, each customer gets a compact cylinder of helium.

The better alternative

“Before we hand over the gas cylinder to customers, we show them how to handle it and how to use it to inflate the balloons. In the past we used smaller disposable gas tanks for the helium, but we weren’t satisfied with them so we went in search of a better alternative.”

“That search brought us to Air Liquide’s ALbee Fly products. The quality of the helium is excellent, and the cylinders are safe and especially practical in use. That’s a major advantage, since of course our customers are mostly not used to handling gas cylinders. I usually use five-litre cylinders. You can inflate about 55 to 60 balloons with just one, although in practice it’s often more because customers don’t dare to inflate the balloons quite as fully as they could. At the moment I’m also using the smaller three-litre ALbee Fly cylinders, which will do 30 or so balloons.”

“Of course, the most important thing is that my customers are satisfied. And in fact, customers using ALbee Fly often give us repeat orders for other occasions, so I think we’re good in that regard.”