Balloon drop a UAF commencement tradition

May 6, 2016

An air compressor has been running every day this week at Beth and Glenn Brummond’s Fairbanks home, and their huge garage is half-filled with blue and gold balloons.

It can only mean one thing — the University of Alaska Fairbanks commencement ceremony is coming soon. The event will begin at 1:20 p.m. Sunday, May 8, at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks.

Since 2007, the Brummonds' business, Aurora Balloons and Decorating, has coordinated the balloon drop that ushers out UAF’s newest group of alumni. It’s the visual highlight of the ceremony, with a shower of balloons tumbling from the Carlson Center ceiling onto the graduates below.

Like many elements of commencement, it also requires extensive planning to create a brief but memorable moment.

A garage attached to the Brummond home that once housed a jet ski and four snowmachines is now strictly for storage. The Brummonds have spent the past week inflating balloons, loading about 1,100 of them into the space, including an assortment of basketball-sized 10-inch globes, sturdy 20-inch balloons and a handful of shimmering vinyl stars.

The balloons will travel to the Carlson Center in a series of 20-foot trailer loads, where they’ll be hoisted to the ceiling in three separate nettings. Rip cords in each will be pulled at the conclusion of commencement, releasing them in a photogenic shower.

It’s the big moment of Beth’s biggest job of the year. She’s been enthralled by such pageantry since she was a high school student working backstage during drama productions.

“I loved it, and I still love it,” she said. “It’s so much fun to just make it look awesome. It’s like a puzzle, and I get to see it all come together.”

Through the years she’s discovered plenty of subtle but important keys to the process. The balloon knots can’t be too big or they get caught in the netting. Balloons expand when they’re raised to the ceiling, so they need to be underinflated a bit to keep from bursting.

Perhaps most importantly, using huge balloons seems to encourage people to roll on them until they pop, sending the playful individuals crashing to the ground. The big balloons are not part of the mix anymore.

In the Brummonds' first year at UAF commencement, one of the nets was improperly assembled, causing its balloons to fall out in the middle of the night. The Brummonds got a call on the morning of the ceremony and spent a few frantic hours reassembling their setup before the procession.

“Even though we’ve done it very successfully since then, I still don’t sleep well,” Beth said with a laugh.

She said her reward is in seeing the graduates walk out holding balloons as souvenirs, followed by kids in the audience rushing behind them to scoop up the leftovers.

Through the years, the balloon drop has become a tradition.

“It’s the students who want it and look forward to it,” she said. “It’s a really cool thing to be walking through all those balloons coming down.”