In this episode of the Compendium, we step back into time to revist The Cleveland Balloon Fest of 1986, a high-flying event that hoped to lift a city's spirits but instead spiraled into one of the most infamous blunders of the decade. I tell Adam all the juicy details of this helium-filled fiasco, where ambition met reality with explosive environmental consequences. We'll explore how this well-intentioned charity event turned into a disaster, examining the safety concerns of mass balloon releases and their unintended environmental impacts.
You'll hear how a city’s attempt to set a world record became a case study in event planning disasters. The story highlights significant points in environmental activism history and raises questions about the safety practices surrounding helium balloons, ultimately becoming a controversial chapter in the Guinness World Records.
We give you the Compendium, but if you want more, then check out these great resources:
Send us a Text Message and get a shout out in Listner Mail!
Connect with Us:
Support the podcast:
Credits:
In this episode of the Compendium, we step back into time to revist The Cleveland Balloon Fest of 1986, a high-flying event that hoped to lift a city's spirits but instead spiraled into one of the most infamous blunders of the decade. I tell Adam all the juicy details of this helium-filled fiasco, where ambition met reality with explosive environmental consequences. We'll explore how this well-intentioned charity event turned into a disaster, examining the safety concerns of mass balloon releases and their unintended environmental impacts.
You'll hear how a city’s attempt to set a world record became a case study in event planning disasters. The story highlights significant points in environmental activism history and raises questions about the safety practices surrounding helium balloons, ultimately becoming a controversial chapter in the Guinness World Records.
We give you the Compendium, but if you want more, then check out these great resources:
Send us a Text Message and get a shout out in Listner Mail!
Connect with Us:
Support the podcast:
Credits:
[00:00:00] Kyle Risi: So of course, this just ended up completely undoing everything that Cleveland has set out to achieve just in the previous 12 months.
[00:00:08] Kyle Risi: And in the aftermath of all of this, the entire country of Canada was completely outraged because a lot of the balloon debris started washing up on their side of the lake and even though the balloons were supposed to be biodegradable they took months to break down, essentially they ended up choking a bunch of animals that tried to eat them in the meantime so the entire event was just declared this huge environmental catastrophe.
[00:00:33] Adam Cox: Yeah. [00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Kyle Risi: Welcome to The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. We are a weekly variety podcast where each week I tell Adam Cox all about a topic I think he'll find both fascinating and intriguing. We dive into stories pulled from the darker corners of true crime, the annuls of your old unread history books, and the who's who of extraordinary people.
[00:01:21] Kyle Risi: We give you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering. Of course, as always, I'm your host this week, Kyle Risi.
[00:01:29] Kyle Risi: And I'm your co host, Adam Cox. And on today's episode of The Compendium, I'm going to be telling you about an assembly of lighter than air dreams. and the weighty reality when they burst.
[00:01:42] Adam Cox: Ooh, it sounds like someone's dreams are dashed after, someone crushes them.
[00:01:47] Kyle Risi: What I really love about these clues is they act as like a Rawshank kind of blob image.
[00:01:52] Kyle Risi: Do you know that psychologists, they hold up a picture and there's a big blob that looks like a butterfly or a bat? Oh
[00:01:56] Adam Cox: yeah, yeah,
[00:01:57] Kyle Risi: yeah. And I, I get the feeling that it gives us an insight as [00:02:00] to what's going through your mind based on what you pull from the clues.
[00:02:03] Kyle Risi: So, like, who's dashing your dreams?
[00:02:06] Adam Cox: Um, everyone. Everyone's dashing my dreams. Is it me? Um, I mean, I shouldn't name names.
[00:02:13] Kyle Risi: Yeah so I'm really excited about today's little story because it's a bit of a break from our usual topics of late about murder, corruption and scandal.
[00:02:20] Kyle Risi: Instead, we're taking a leisurely stroll. Through a bit of an historic blunder that took place in America in the mid 1980s. Today's story is very silly and it's about a city who, with the very best of intentions, tried to shift their image into a positive direction, but instead ended up causing a rather large ecological disaster. That's pretty much earnt Place amongst the annuls of your old unread history books. See what I did there?
[00:02:48] Adam Cox: Ah, you got the tagline in.
[00:02:49] Kyle Risi: Got the tagline in there. So this week I'm going to be telling you about the infamous Cleveland Balloon Fest disaster of 1986. What do you know [00:03:00] about this disaster?
[00:03:01] Adam Cox: Well, um, it sounds like quite a fun one, if no one's dying, then, and there's no crime, then.
[00:03:06] Adam Cox: Ooh,
[00:03:06] Kyle Risi: okay. Well, I mean we'll have to wait and see if anyone's died. Yeah.
[00:03:11] Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, ecological disaster aside, it sounds, upbeat.
[00:03:15] Kyle Risi: I mean, if you're one of those people that really draws humor and hilarity from ecological disasters, then this will be an uplifting story for you. But aside from the ecological disaster, yeah, it's a bit of a more of an upbeat kind of story. As opposed to the ones that we've covered of late.
[00:03:32] Adam Cox: Great, this is. Straight up your street.
[00:03:35] Kyle Risi: You need a break from all the headaches and the kind of the intensity of Cassie Chadwick and OJ Simpson and the Gucci family scandal.
[00:03:44] Adam Cox: Yeah, just good old ecological disasters. These are my favorite.
[00:03:49] Kyle Risi: So today's story actually takes us back to 1986. It was the year of the Chernobyl disaster. When a huge nuclear catastrophe occurred in the Soviet Union. Madonna's Papa Don't [00:04:00] Preach was being blasted through everybody's Walkmans. Video games were being played on the NES, and of course the world was shook by the Challenger Space Shuttle that exploded in midair.
[00:04:10] Kyle Risi: Do you remember that?
[00:04:11] Adam Cox: No, no I don't. I wasn't born then, so I don't remember it.
[00:04:14] Kyle Risi: You do understand that events actually took place in the years prior to you being born, right?
[00:04:21] Adam Cox: Well No. Not to me they didn't.
[00:04:26] Kyle Risi: And so in September of that same year, Balloon Fest took place, which was supposed to be a fun, playful way to raise money for charity, and even more than that, helped turn around the reputation of Cleveland City from being this national embarrassment into a buzzing tourist destination.
[00:04:44] Kyle Risi: And if the name of this little event has left you in any doubt as to what it actually entailed, Then to explain, this event was going to involve filling 2 million balloons with helium, releasing them all simultaneously in a grand display that was expected to place the city firmly on the [00:05:00] map and attract millions of new tourists every year.
[00:05:03] Kyle Risi: And so, in today's episode of The Compendium, I'm going to be telling you about the Cleveland Balloon Fest and how this entire saga turned into a complete shitshow.
[00:05:13] Adam Cox: It sounds interesting because I don't hear anyone ever wanting to go to Cleveland. So this feels like didn't end well for Cleveland.
[00:05:19] Kyle Risi: By the way, we were just in Cleveland two weeks ago.
[00:05:22] Adam Cox: Were we?
[00:05:23] Kyle Risi: Yeah, with Cassie Chadwick. Oh, she was from Cleveland.
[00:05:25] Adam Cox: Oh, okay. Yeah. I thought we were physically there.
[00:05:27] Kyle Risi: Oh, right. Sorry Sometimes these stories that we tell Adam, they really transport us back into time into places You know, they really do so like the lines get blurred when I say we visited sometimes I literally mean it
[00:05:40] Adam Cox: Did you think that you were Cassie Chadwick?
[00:05:42] Kyle Risi: I was Cassie Chadwick. I had these big voluptuous breasts. I was the lady of the hypnotic eye. You were. Yeah. But anyway, before we jump into today's episode, as always, around this time of the episode, it's time for
[00:05:54] Adam Cox: All the latest things.
[00:05:56] Kyle Risi: [00:06:00] So this is a segment of our show where we catch up on all the week's happenings and share a quick tidbit, strange fact, or laugh at a bit of weird news from the past week.
[00:06:08] Kyle Risi: So Adam, it's your turn to go first this week, so what have you got for us?
[00:06:12] Adam Cox: Well, um, I'm a bit late to the party with this news. Um, probably about, almost 10 years. That's pretty late. That's pretty damn late.
[00:06:20] Kyle Risi: Everyone's died since then.
[00:06:21] Adam Cox: A lot of things have happened. But one thing that happened back in 2015 was, um, I don't know if you've heard about this, about a movie called A Hundred Years.
[00:06:30] Adam Cox: Say more things and then maybe So this movie was written and I think it starred John Malkovich And it was directed by Robert Rodriguez. And the idea is that this movie was a short film that that's been locked away and it's not to be watched by a hundred years.
[00:06:49] Adam Cox: So it's like a
[00:06:50] Kyle Risi: film, time capsule.
[00:06:52] Adam Cox: Yeah, like that. Exactly. And it's apparently, locked quite securely, in some high tech safe that's rigged to open [00:07:00] automatically on November the 18th. 2 21 15.
[00:07:04] Kyle Risi: And what's the film about?
[00:07:06] Adam Cox: No one really knows because the, if you look on IMDB, the character's names are just called hero, hero girl, or bad guy.
[00:07:14] Adam Cox: Uhhuh. .
[00:07:14] Adam Cox: So it's so top secret. No one really knows what it's about. So people
[00:07:17] Kyle Risi: don't even know who the actors are.
[00:07:19] Adam Cox: Well, aside from John Malkovich being and whoever and stuff,
[00:07:23] Kyle Risi: wouldn't it be real funny if like in 2,115, the capsule opens up and they put the film into the player, and then it just says, I owe you one film.
[00:07:35] Adam Cox: Oh, we didn't hit record.
[00:07:38] Kyle Risi: Oh, we'll get around to it. And then like they've passed on, they've died and they forgot to actually complete the film. Yeah. So it was all just a bunch of hype.
[00:07:44] Adam Cox: Well, the thing is, I wonder what that would be like what format is that going to be on? Because if we were to open, although we probably have got the technology that we've kept around, if we were to. watch a film that was shot in the early 1900s. Are they going to be able to watch a film that was shot [00:08:00] now? I'm convinced that
[00:08:01] Kyle Risi: they will be able to. I think we have a lot more of these things and we're a lot better preserving things.
[00:08:05] Adam Cox: I guess so. I guess that's us finding a film now and it, where like before the talkies, it would perhaps just be music or Big fans.
[00:08:14] Adam Cox: Yeah. Um, Yeah, it would just be music and I don't know, really sped up or I don't know what would be the story be of all this, the title cards when they're like talking. So imagine what film and cinema might be like in a hundred years. And they're watching what we've got now and thinking, that's really archaic or whatever.
[00:08:32] Kyle Risi: Oh, that's very exciting. I can't wait. Yes. Well, I mean, we won't be around.
[00:08:36] Adam Cox: We'll be
[00:08:36] Kyle Risi: Firmly dead.
[00:08:37] Adam Cox: If you look at the movie posters, it says something like, the movie you'll never see.
[00:08:41] Kyle Risi: How much did they spend making the film?
[00:08:43] Adam Cox: It's only a short film. So maybe a million. I don't know.
[00:08:46] Kyle Risi: Remember that short film that you did that was just awful about the vampires and you had to go to that guy's house on set. And he thought that he was going to in, uh, enter his short film into like the, the Oscars. Was that right? [00:09:00] An Academy Award?
[00:09:00] Adam Cox: Yeah, some high or BAFTAs or something like that.
[00:09:03] Adam Cox: Yeah.
[00:09:04] Kyle Risi: And Adam, that, that, that film was not good.
[00:09:06] Adam Cox: Do you know what? I completely blocked that out of my mind. I'd forgotten I ever did that until you just reminded me.
[00:09:12] Kyle Risi: It was like a really, really bad Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Awful, awful episode. And he believed that he was gonna win an Oscar for it.
[00:09:21] Adam Cox: Yeah, and he had, I remember, so, we were being kept in the garage, we couldn't go into the main house, and, he had put all his money invested into this film, which, yeah, I don't think, Storm Drain Films, that's what it was called.
[00:09:35] Kyle Risi: Uh, what was the living conditions like in that garage, was it literally just a garage?
[00:09:40] Kyle Risi: Were there any beds or anything? There
[00:09:41] Adam Cox: was beds, yeah. Or was there an airbed? I don't remember now. It was
[00:09:45] Kyle Risi: like I was really proud of you when you did that because it was your first film that you worked on but then I felt awful for you because like that was your first experience. Yeah, and that's why I quit.
[00:09:54] Kyle Risi: You quit because of this guy. Oh my god. Do you think what's ever happened to him? Did he ever release it?
[00:09:59] Adam Cox: I don't [00:10:00] think so. I don't think it's done that well. I don't think people have heard of it.
[00:10:04] Kyle Risi: Do you think that's the film that's in the time capsule?
[00:10:10] Kyle Risi: SuRprise!
[00:10:12] Adam Cox: God, yeah, that should be buried.
[00:10:13] Kyle Risi: So my all the latest things this week is that in the late 1980s, certain American states and cities classified the ownership of a pager by children as a punishable offence. And it came with a penalty of up to six months in jail if you were caught with a pager under the age of 18. What? So for those of you who may be wondering what a pager actually is, it's the small electronic device that was used to notify people to call like a landline.
[00:10:44] Kyle Risi: So this was the precursor to the mobile phone back in the day.
[00:10:48] Adam Cox: did you ever own a pager? I didn't. My dad had one for work. So if my mom wanted to get hold of him, she would. Call his pager, it would buzz and then he'd like call back when he could, sort of thing.
[00:10:58] Kyle Risi: And what did it [00:11:00] display on it? Did it display who was calling? I think so. Like, call your mum or call your wife or whatever?
[00:11:05] Adam Cox: Yeah, I don't know. It was either a telephone number or if you maybe saved a number with a person. I can't remember.
[00:11:09] Kyle Risi: So initially, pagers would simply just vibrate, alerting you that someone's trying to make contact.
[00:11:14] Kyle Risi: So then you would simply ring a number. And then the person at the interchange would tell you the number that's called. Oh, I like that. But then over time, they eventually evolved to receive short messages, which would instruct the kind of interchange service. To forward on a message to tell you call your wife, et cetera.
[00:11:31] Kyle Risi: So it doesn't automatically know that when this number comes through to display this message, someone at an interchange It's forwarding that message on to say call mom, call work, whatever.
[00:11:43] Kyle Risi: So there's this article in the New Yorker that talks about the pros and cons of pages and it's a brilliant article.
[00:11:50] Kyle Risi: So they say that the problem is that every beeper wearer has a story about their beeper going off at the worst time. So for instance, a salesman was flirting with his woman one night [00:12:00] and when he thought he was really getting somewhere and about to close the deal.
[00:12:03] Kyle Risi: His beeper blared out, call your wife. So that kind of spoiled his chances. So when they spoke to one of the operating services, they said they had 1, 400 beepers in their system, but not a single one of them, when their wife calls asked to relay the message, call your wife, instead they asked for. The message, uh, call your answering service.
[00:12:23] Kyle Risi: Really? Yeah. Not a single one. Isn't that crazy?
[00:12:26] Adam Cox: That is. Yeah. And they, when did they release this information then? Oh,
[00:12:32] Kyle Risi: I don't know, babe. I don't know, I got this from another podcast. Well,
[00:12:38] Adam Cox: I just thought like, um, yeah, they just like done a bit of a study and like, oh, do you know what we just realized?
[00:12:43] Kyle Risi: But anyway, so we've actually digressed because we were talking about, uh, youth.
[00:12:48] Kyle Risi: So in the 1980s, there was this huge moral panic about how pages were starting to facilitate the drug trade amongst young people, which led to states like New Jersey, placing bans on people under the age of 18 from owning one. And in [00:13:00] Chicago, in one year alone, they made over a thousand arrests of young people who were found owning a pager in schools, out on the streets, etc.
[00:13:10] Kyle Risi: And of course, the thing is, as soon as you ban something, it just makes things more desirable, right? So pages became this symbol of coolness that even sparked this massive, huge market for fake pages out on the streets. Wow. So, just, I just imagine all these kids pretending they've just got a page from their fake device like, Yeah, sorry, it's my dealer.
[00:13:35] Kyle Risi: Yeah, I just better go take this.
[00:13:37] Adam Cox: Do you think they like set a timer on it so it would like buzz in like 30 minutes?
[00:13:40] Kyle Risi: Did you ever used to do that as a kid, like a right loser? Like pretend you've got a phone call?
[00:13:45] Adam Cox: No.
[00:13:45] Kyle Risi: Just to look cool. Oh, I did. I was such a loser at school. I was so desperate to look cool. People would wear rucksacks. I really want to wear a rucksack But I had nothing to put in my rucksack. So I just filled it with scrunched up newspapers.
[00:13:57] Adam Cox: Wow, that's an insight into your [00:14:00] childhood.
[00:14:00] Kyle Risi: I know, such a loser.
[00:14:02] Kyle Risi: And the thing is though, they became this huge status symbol across all different kind of like tiers of society. So for example, if you were in line for a dinner reservation. If you were seen to have a beeper on your person, you could sometimes skip the line, they would just invite you over because you were seen as being a somebody, you Isn't that just mental?
[00:14:19] Adam Cox: Yeah, it's just a like a gadget at the time
[00:14:22] Kyle Risi: at the time. Yeah, but at the time like it was this really cool thing. It was kind of like the calling cards from the Cassie Chadwick episode. Yeah, you know where the more calling cards you had was a symbol that you were really popular and in demand.
[00:14:35] Kyle Risi: And I guess the same thing with a A beeper. If you weren't needing a beeper, you're in demand, right? so one chick is on record as being so upset that she hadn't invited all the coolest people to her party because there weren't enough beepers going off But the thing is though they were just all those, uh All those fake beepers.
[00:14:52] Adam Cox: Yeah. That people carry. And they probably like react to each other. Like one goes off and the other one. Remember those toys that like vibrate against each other?
[00:14:59] Kyle Risi: Was it not like the [00:15:00] Furbies?
[00:15:00] Adam Cox: Kind of like that. That's so weird, the fact that you're judging your party, like, not on the food, not on the music, not on the atmosphere. How many beepers were there? How many beepers were going off?
[00:15:08] Kyle Risi: That's how huge this was as a coolness factor, I guess.
[00:15:11] Adam Cox: Yeah,
[00:15:12] Kyle Risi: but what's really fascinating is that pages are still in use today. In particular in the NHS. So if you are a listener outside the UK, the NHS is our national health service. There are still 80, 000 pages still in use across the NHS. as of 2022. Really? Is
[00:15:28] Adam Cox: it doctors?
[00:15:28] Adam Cox: So they're being buzzed to come to a certain ward or whatever it might be? Exactly. Yeah. Is that so they can't like, why can't they just use a phone?
[00:15:34] Kyle Risi: Uh, because in some areas of the hospital, they're really secured. So like MRI scanners and things like that. Makes sense. Radio waves can't get through. So I guess pagers can.
[00:15:44] Kyle Risi: also the chances that you've actually physically used a pager today is still pretty damn high. Because if you've ever gone to a restaurant and they've given you one of those little buzzers that tell you when your table is ready, that's buzzer technology.
[00:15:55] Adam Cox: Ah, okay.
[00:15:56] Kyle Risi: Did you know that?
[00:15:57] Adam Cox: I didn't, no.
[00:15:58] Kyle Risi: So finally I want to talk about [00:16:00] GADAR. How good's your gaydup?
[00:16:01] Adam Cox: I think it's pretty good.
[00:16:02] Kyle Risi: I think, I think our gaydup is pretty good. We walk down the street and we just look at each other and go, gay!
[00:16:09] Adam Cox: That's you looking at the reflection.
[00:16:11] Kyle Risi: I was gonna say, when we see someone who's clearly gay, we just go, gay!
[00:16:15] Kyle Risi: So in 1999, this guy invented a GADAR device which was designed for men wandering around local parks to discreetly find other men who are looking to hook up. And the idea was that you'd be buzzed when you go near the vicinity of someone who also had a beeper that matched the specific frequency that they were using.
[00:16:34] Adam Cox: Uh, okay.
[00:16:35] Kyle Risi: But they probably didn't test the frequency. So it turned out that it would have these really adverse effects. So it would cause car alarms to just randomly go off. So it's not. That discreetly, he's but even worse, the frequency would do something really weird to badgers, which would result in them chasing these unsuspecting gay men across the park, wandering around and looking to hook up.
[00:16:54] Kyle Risi: So imagine all these horny badgers, just wanting to look up with like. a human man. And they're like, I don't know why I'm so attracted [00:17:00] to him. It's just really weird. But I just had to chase after him when these gay men are just running away.
[00:17:04] Adam Cox: That's so weird. So they go out and they're like, I'm just going to set my frequency to gay.
[00:17:08] Adam Cox: And then just wait for, and wait for,
[00:17:12] Adam Cox: wait for it to just be buzzed. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's dumb. But I guess maybe you didn't want to ask at that point. So this was a subtle way of doing it. I guess
[00:17:21] Kyle Risi: so. I guess that's exactly it. So yeah, that's all the latest things. Should we get on with the show?
[00:17:24] Adam Cox: Yeah, tell me about some balloons.
[00:17:25] Kyle Risi: So Adam, we are here to talk about Balloon Fest 1986. I'm so ready for this. So for those fans who are unfamiliar with the city of Cleveland, when it was first founded in the American Midwest, it started off as a thriving industrial city. But then in the early 1960s, things kinda took a bit of a turn for the worst and a bunch of factories closed, thousands of people lost their jobs, which resulted in widespread homelessness throughout the region, and as a result, the city's population ended up plummeting as [00:18:00] thousands of families upsticks and relocated to other parts of the USA.
[00:18:04] Kyle Risi: And so, with the rise of unemployment, the city's crime rate consequently went through the roof, and eventually It had reached one of the highest in the United States. And it was fair to say that during this time, anyone left in Cleveland was either a criminal, a victim of a crime or both.
[00:18:22] Kyle Risi: And the city was in such disrepair that at one point it's main river was so heavily polluted that it literally caught fire. On at least 13 different occasions.
[00:18:33] Adam Cox: Well, what were people sticking in this river then?
[00:18:36] Kyle Risi: Well, like grease and sludge would often collect in various sections along the river that was just kind of floating on the surface. And this was just compounded with the accumulation of wood and other sorts of debris, including like manure and whatnot.
[00:18:48] Adam Cox: Right, okay.
[00:18:49] Kyle Risi: And all it would take would just be a single spark coming from a train wheel, and then off it would go.
[00:18:54] Adam Cox: Wow, this sounds like a delightful place.
[00:18:57] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So on top of this, Cleveland is not known for its [00:19:00] gorgeous sunshine, since Cleveland already had a reputation for having some of the dreariest weather in North America.
[00:19:06] Kyle Risi: And we're not just talking clouds and drizzle, we're literally talking about tornadoes and blizzards. all of the time. So at the best of times, was far removed from being that kind of jewel in the American crown. In fact, to highlight what a dumpster fire Cleveland was, its founder, General Moses Cleveland, decided to leave the city after a few months after arriving because he hated it so much and he's never returned in his entire life.
[00:19:33] Adam Cox: He named the place after himself and went, this is a shitshow, I'm out. Exactly. 100%. So it's a big statement when even the city's founder, who called the city after himself, was like, nah, fuck this, and just decided to bounce.
[00:19:46] Adam Cox: Yeah, wow. So yeah, who's, who's summering in Cleveland then?
[00:19:51] Kyle Risi: Not many people, certainly not since Cassie Chadwick's day. So obviously today things are a lot different, but back then Cleveland was just a shit show. [00:20:00] Now Cleveland sits just on the edge of Lake Erie. And when you combine all of these factors together, it was just an absolute dumpster fire.
[00:20:08] Kyle Risi: And for years, the city was known colloquially across America, as the mistake on the lake. And Cleveland, for many Americans, was often just the butt of the joke. So, for example, what's the difference between Cleveland and a bucket of crap?
[00:20:22] Adam Cox: Um, nothing.
[00:20:24] Kyle Risi: The bucket. Or, on account of obviously the high crime rate, Another very sophisticated joke, if I may add, was what do kids in Cleveland spend their first semester of kindergarten studying?
[00:20:37] Adam Cox: Uh, crime?
[00:20:38] Kyle Risi: The Miranda rights. The what? What's the Miranda rights? That's you are under arrest, you have the right to remain silent, and blah, blah, blah, that little whole spiel that American
[00:20:47] Adam Cox: I can imagine all the kids in the playground practicing that.
[00:20:50] Kyle Risi: I know mine way better than you do.
[00:20:52] Adam Cox: I can arrest you better than that.
[00:20:54] Kyle Risi: I can get arrested better than that. I'm more compliant at being arrested than you [00:21:00] are. But yeah, so by the mid 1980s, following a few decades of decline, the Cleveland city council decided that they were sick of being the laughingstock of the United States and started looking to different initiatives to help their abysmal reputation, start recovering and establish some positivity for the city.
[00:21:17] Kyle Risi: The first thing that they tried to do was a very intense and very expensive campaign to secure the location of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum in their city.
[00:21:27] Kyle Risi: And a lot of the details have been covered up about what this campaign actually entailed, but it has been rumored it involved a lot of bribery and back room negotiations underneath this kind of very thin veil that resembled a legitimate campaign. But ultimately, they bribed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to make Cleveland their official home to their museum.
[00:21:48] Adam Cox: Right, okay.
[00:21:50] Kyle Risi: And of course there's work. The city did manage to secure itself as the official home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame over cities like New York, Memphis, and Philadelphia. And that just [00:22:00] screams to me corruption there, because why would you choose Cleveland over like New York.
[00:22:04] Adam Cox: Yeah, and is that enough to go to Cleveland? Just to see this rock and roll hall of fame? I
[00:22:08] Kyle Risi: guess they're going to compound it, right? They're going to improve a whole bunch of other things, but one of the highlights would be the rock and roll hall of fame museum.
[00:22:15] Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess it's going to speak to some people.
[00:22:17] Kyle Risi: And so this new accolade started to feel like a real turning point for the city and so to commemorate this monumental achievement the Cleveland City Council decided that they needed something big to mark the beginning of an era of prosperity for Cleveland. Something that would stop America in their tracks and take notice and hopefully put an end to all the relentless jokes about Cleveland.
[00:22:41] Kyle Risi: So the city council and local committee members all came together for a brainstorming session in March of 1986. And their aim was to try and work out what this big thing was going to be. Right. The brief to the members was that whatever this thing that they needed, that they didn't know what it was, but was certain was crucial. Was it had [00:23:00] to get national news coverage. It had to be spectacular enough that people from across the United States would travel to Cleveland to come and see and whatever this thing was, it had to make history. Okay.
[00:23:12] Kyle Risi: So they all started taking turns, bouncing ideas around and they started brainstorming other events and people and organizations that have historically been really good at drawing in big crowds. So suggestions flew around the room until somebody pointed out that drawing in crowds is actually a hallmark of creativity. of what Disneyland did really well and maybe they would be a great barometer for kicking off their ideas. That makes sense,
[00:23:34] Adam Cox: yeah.
[00:23:35] Kyle Risi: But then someone pointed out that actually Disneyland just a few months prior had gotten a crowd of 100, 000 people at the 30th anniversary celebration of By releasing 1 million helium balloons into the air. And as a result, this got them a Guinness book of world records for the biggest mass balloon release of all time.
[00:23:54] Adam Cox: um, yeah, okay, I can see why they would have latched on to that idea, but I think they are forgetting that the [00:24:00] other thing that Disney has is Disney characters, theme park, food, shows, all this other stuff.
[00:24:06] Adam Cox: Correct. So, I don't know if a million balloons is gonna be enough.
[00:24:10] Kyle Risi: So this then inspired their great idea for the thing that would mark this new era in Cleveland's history. They decided that they would release two million balloons
[00:24:20] Adam Cox: and
[00:24:20] Kyle Risi: steal Disneyland's world record right from underneath them like a sneaky little mouse.
[00:24:24] Adam Cox: Much better.
[00:24:26] Kyle Risi: And as a result, they would then be able to show that Cleveland was in fact better than Disneyland, essentially. It's not. It won't be.
[00:24:33] Adam Cox: that, isn't there? Like, we are better than Disneyland at releasing balloons.
[00:24:38] Kyle Risi: So then some of the city accountants began crunching some numbers, and it was pretty quickly discovered that they didn't actually have enough money to fund an event of this scale. Especially since they had spent the bulk of their money bribing in Inverted Commons, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to kind of make the city the home of their museum.
[00:24:53] Kyle Risi: So instead they decided that they would make the entire event one huge fundraiser. and they would get a [00:25:00] charity involved and that way they could then pass on the costs of the entire event onto the people of Cleveland.
[00:25:06] Adam Cox: Wow, shady.
[00:25:07] Kyle Risi: Shady. So it was decided this big idea was to release 2 million balloons, 1 million more than Disneyland, just a few kind of months prior. And the event would be funded through charitable donations, but they had to keep brainstorming because they had a very big issue with this idea. And that was a solution for sourcing the manpower that they would need to fill up two million balloons with helium.
[00:25:29] Kyle Risi: that's when they decided, kids, kids. So they would get a bunch of kids across a bunch of local schools to volunteer to make this entire event happen. And to them, this was a stroke of genius because the media loved kids and they thought essentially that they would all be falling over themselves to be at the front line to cover this event, which would then be certain to make kind of national news because who doesn't love a kid, like working hard, giving back to the community.
[00:25:56] Adam Cox: Yeah, in a Chinese factory, making clothes and toys.
[00:25:59] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. [00:26:00] Everyone loves it. So heartwarming. Look at him. Look how quick he works.
[00:26:03] Adam Cox: Yeah, but I can't believe, I guess that would, they're going to be excited because it's balloons, but. How many machines or healing machines are they going to need and kids to do to pull off two million balloons?
[00:26:13] Kyle Risi: I know we're going to get onto that right because it's ridiculous what they expect these poor kids to do So, it was decided. The next thing that they needed was the cherry on top of the proverbial cake, as it were. And that was to decide what the hell they were gonna call this big event.
[00:26:29] Kyle Risi: And out of all the ideas that were put forward, and after taking inspiration from what Disneyland called their event, The One Million Balloon Sky Release Fest, They decided simply on Balloon Fest. If it's not broke, don't fix it.
[00:26:43] Kyle Risi: But they did break it . They took the 1 million Balloon Sky Fest title and they made it Balloon Fest.
[00:26:50] Kyle Risi: I know, but so clearly they felt that was broken and they made the road one.
[00:26:53] Adam Cox: I know, but what I mean is like you, how, how much more creative can you be? Oh, right.
[00:26:56] Kyle Risi: Just say what's on the tin, right? Yeah. Moon Fest. I guess, I guess the [00:27:00] thinking was that the 1 million balloon release Sky Fest. They're thinking was, well, no one's here to see the sky. They're here to see the balloons. Yeah. And then just call it Balloon Fest.
[00:27:09] Kyle Risi: Now, lastly, they decided that all they needed now was a mascot. Someone who would bring this entire thing together. Someone that would become so synonymous With this historic event, that it would stand as a reminder to all people across America that Cleveland was no longer a force to be reckoned with.
[00:27:27] Adam Cox: Who did they get?
[00:27:28] Kyle Risi: They wanted the Balloon Baron, who was actually a real person.
[00:27:32] Kyle Risi: So during the 1980s, the Balloon Baron was already a well recognized celebrity across the United States and was considered, at the time, the global authority on all things balloons.
[00:27:43] Adam Cox: Is this like a cartoon character? No, no, he's a
[00:27:46] Kyle Risi: real life man.
[00:27:47] Adam Cox: And he's called the Balloon Baron?
[00:27:49] Kyle Risi: He called himself the Balloon Baron, yeah.
[00:27:50] Adam Cox: And what kind of things does he do in his typical working week?
[00:27:54] Kyle Risi: Anything to do with balloons, he can do it.
[00:27:57] Adam Cox: So he passes, I don't know, if there's a new balloon design that goes [00:28:00] through him? Mm hmm, probably. Yeah, you don't know.
[00:28:05] Kyle Risi: So his real name was Treb Heening.
[00:28:07] Kyle Risi: Now Treb had started dabbling in balloons when he was just 15 years old working at Disneyland and in the late 1970s he was asked to do a special balloon release for none other than Cher at the Academy Awards. And since then, he had been booked on all the huge events that involve balloons of some kind.
[00:28:25] Kyle Risi: So he did the Olympic Games in 1984 in Los Angeles. He then was booked for a bunch of Super Bowls, as well as a couple presidential inaugurations, and various New Year's Eve celebrations as well across kind of America.
[00:28:40] Adam Cox: Wow. So any big event that needed balloons, he's your man. That's what
[00:28:43] Kyle Risi: I said. I said that first.
[00:28:45] Adam Cox: Okay.
[00:28:46] Kyle Risi: Any big event he was booked for. He was in such high demand that he was literally on people's speed dial.
[00:28:52] Kyle Risi: And if you want to credit or blame anyone for the global increase in baby showers or graduation balloon arches that the [00:29:00] world has just not been able to shake since the 1980s. Then Treb is your man. He was the first.
[00:29:05] Adam Cox: I see. Do you know what? You can get a really good balloon arch from TMU. Mm
[00:29:10] Kyle Risi: hmm.
[00:29:11] Adam Cox: Yeah, just that you can. Doesn't involve Treb.
[00:29:15] Kyle Risi: I'm cutting that out.
[00:29:16] Adam Cox: how did he get into balloons? Has he got some sort of weird fetish or Well,
[00:29:20] Kyle Risi: a latex fetish.
[00:29:22] Adam Cox: Yeah.
[00:29:22] Kyle Risi: I don't know. I wonder if that's something that you can develop over your life. Like you can start out not having a latex allergy and then slowly as years go on, they get worse and worse as the years go on. I wonder if the same thing happens with latex and balloons.
[00:29:36] Adam Cox: He just, he just can't get enough balloons.
[00:29:38] Kyle Risi: They'd be terrible. By the way, leading up to just before Cleveland's ambitious balloon fest, Trev was actually the guy recruited by Disneyland to design and coordinate Disneyland's 1 million balloon release SkyFest that had obviously broken the world record.
[00:29:53] Kyle Risi: So. This was just like a rehash to him, so he was the perfect man to do this anyway.
[00:29:58] Adam Cox: Sure.
[00:29:59] Kyle Risi: What makes me laugh [00:30:00] by the way is how Cleveland orchestrated this huge brainstorming committee to come up with this huge event that was going to kind of place Cleveland on the map. But the best they could do is a completely unoriginal rehash of a previous event just a few months prior and just by upping the balloons by one, an extra 1 million.
[00:30:16] Adam Cox: But these are people that live in Cleveland and I think we've discovered that maybe they're just not that creative.
[00:30:21] Kyle Risi: But yeah, I mean, out of all that brainstorming, out of all that money, the best they could do is just a rehash of what someone else done just literally a few months before.
[00:30:28] Kyle Risi: But anyway, Trev, of course, is contacted by Cleveland and he jumps at the chance to break his own world record. So together, Trev and his wife, they up sticks and they move to Cleveland to try and pull this entire thing off.
[00:30:40] Kyle Risi: So I think that's a great time for us to take a quick break. And when we get back, I'll tell you exactly how this entire thing unfolded.
[00:30:47] Kyle Risi: Hey fans, Kyle here. We have an exciting announcement for all you diehard fans of the compendium who find themselves eagerly waiting more after we wrap up every Tuesday.[00:31:00]
[00:31:00] Kyle Risi: Adam and I work tirelessly each week to ensure we have a small backlog of episodes that is ready to be released every Tuesday. Often these episodes just sit idle waiting for their Tuesday release.
[00:31:11] Kyle Risi: So we've decided to put these episodes to work by releasing one whole new episode early every single week, just for those who can't bear the idea of waiting another week for the next episode to drop.
[00:31:24] Kyle Risi: To access this episode ahead of schedule, simply follow the Compendium Podcast on Instagram and click the link in our bio to our Patreon. Joining is completely free. All you need to do is sign up for an account and join the compendium podcast on the free tier.
[00:31:38] Kyle Risi: This will unlock one new episode early each week. We also plan to post regular updates on what we've been up to and what we are currently working on. So you can share your ideas on which topics we should cover next.
[00:31:51] Kyle Risi: If after you enjoy your free early access episode and you're left wanting more, you can subscribe to access up to four brand new [00:32:00] episodes four weeks early.
[00:32:02] Kyle Risi: Patreon is new to us and we're still finding our feet. We don't know what this Patreon will become. It's kind of up to you. So come along and tell us what you want to see more of or less of.
[00:32:13] Kyle Risi: Now, let's gEt back to the show.
[00:32:15] Kyle Risi: Adam. Just before the break, we told you how Cleveland fell from grace and was plummeted into a state of disrepair that resulted in the entire city becoming the butt of the joke across America. And so, as a way to try and build up the city's reputation, Cleveland City Council decided to pull together a task force to try and change this.
[00:32:39] Kyle Risi: First, they successfully bid, in inverted commas, for the new home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, And as a result, they decided that they then needed to mark this achievement as the new era of prosperity for the city by pulling off a monumental event that will be broadcast across the length and breadth of the United [00:33:00] States.
[00:33:00] Kyle Risi: They decided they were gonna release 2 million helium balloons into the sky, breaking the previous set world record at Disneyland of 1 million balloons.
[00:33:10] Kyle Risi: And this entire event was gonna be paid for through charitable donations. And the labor force of a bunch of kids. What could possibly go wrong?
[00:33:21] Adam Cox: I reckon the kids don't turn up.
[00:33:22] Kyle Risi: Do you reckon?
[00:33:23] Adam Cox: Yeah.
[00:33:24] Kyle Risi: Well, let's get into that. So Trev and his wife, of course, they moved to Cleveland to begin planning Balloon Fest 1986.
[00:33:30] Kyle Risi: which was sure to place, of course, Cleveland firmly on the map as a prime U. S. tourist destination. And almost immediately, planning was underway and the very first thing was to start raising the charitable donations required to fund the entire balloon fest. So from between March and September, all the kids across the city were given an allocation of balloons to sell sponsorships for 50 cents apiece.
[00:33:55] Kyle Risi: By the way, this wasn't really optional either like it [00:34:00] was effectively child labor it wasn't the case that they could just maybe go door to door Try and sell a couple of balloons They were literally allocated a quota and they had to get it done.
[00:34:10] Adam Cox: So every school in cleveland had to do this That's crazy It's like they have to, I don't know, that's worse than like the brownies or whatever they were called over there.
[00:34:19] Kyle Risi: Worse than the brownies? What do you know of the politics and the child labor in the brownies?
[00:34:25] Adam Cox: Aren't they forced to like make cookies?
[00:34:26] Adam Cox: I don't know.
[00:34:27] Kyle Risi: I don't think they're forced to, I think that they can if they want to. But yeah, essentially they had this quota and they had to go off and they had to sell all these balloons.
[00:34:34] Adam Cox: Yeah. How many balloons were they targeted with?
[00:34:36] Kyle Risi: Two million. Remarkably, they manage to raise, a million dollars. So that's like two million balloons that they've sold , they're 50 cents a piece and they do it. So between March and September, they get all the kids to raise A million dollars in sponsorship.
[00:34:50] Adam Cox: That feels like you could have, they could have raised this for charity, I don't know, other causes, but they're literally doing it to put a load of balloons in the air.
[00:34:58] Kyle Risi: So then in the days [00:35:00] leading up to the event, the city began to push the event and generate a lot of hype in the media about how this was going to be the rebirth of the city and how this event was absolutely going to change Cleveland's reputation forever.
[00:35:11] Kyle Risi: It was kind of splashed across newspapers and radio stations, all kind of, reporting on it constantly. And it all centered around this concept of making history and changing the city's reputation for a brand new era of prosperity.
[00:35:25] Kyle Risi: They also pushed this huge community drive by signing up thousands of volunteers from kind of the public and various community groups, which aim to turn the entire event into kind of this community effort to try and get people to back it more.
[00:35:40] Kyle Risi: And of course, this was all to kind of keep the excitement bubbling. So tons of promotional materials were just plastered all over the city with vibrant visuals of balloons. And this was seriously successful. It was huge. Like just a few years before the Olympic games were being hosted in Los Angeles.
[00:35:59] Kyle Risi: And so [00:36:00] a lot of people said that this was reminiscent of the of the anticipation and the excitement that was being drummed up with the Olympic Games just a few states away.
[00:36:09] Adam Cox: So people are generally excited about these balloons. Yeah. I guess maybe if this is gonna put Cleveland on the map, the people are like, yeah, getting behind it. Seems like a great day out.
[00:36:21] Kyle Risi: Initially, but we'll see. So with everyone drunk with excitement, Clevelanders started to circulate a bunch of jokes about how great it was going to be that Canada would be stuck having to kind of manage the cleanup once all the balloons had floated up north over the lake and into the Canadian border.
[00:36:39] Adam Cox: Oh, right. Yeah. Cause where are they going to go? They're not just going to come back down. They got to go
[00:36:43] Kyle Risi: somewhere, haven't they?
[00:36:44] Adam Cox: Yeah.
[00:36:45] Kyle Risi: So on television, there were almost constant updates and news bulletins showing footage of the huge mesh balloon enclosure that was being set up on the main public square, which was literally, Adam, the size of a city block.
[00:36:58] Kyle Risi: The entire closure enclosure [00:37:00] was three stories tall with these enormous kind of fabric sides with a giant kind of net over the top. And it's obviously his purpose was to
[00:37:07] Adam Cox: contain the balloons,
[00:37:08] Kyle Risi: contain the balloons as the kid volunteers kind of work through filling up the 2 million balloons. Right. And so finally on launch day, which was the 27th of September, 1986 at 4am, two and a half thousand children and volunteers showed up at the public square in downtown Cleveland, ready to start their shift. Unpaid labor , and each child was issued with a total of 800 balloons that they needed to fill up with helium over the next few hours.
[00:37:37] Kyle Risi: So these are small kids, right? Kindergarten, not kindergartens, like middle schoolers.
[00:37:39] Adam Cox: Yeah, and do they get like a sticker at the end of it going Yeah, I probably just the sticker
[00:37:43] Kyle Risi: that they get. Yeah. I wonder if they even get lunch or anything. It's not mentioned in, in any of the notes.
[00:37:47] Adam Cox: Wow,
[00:37:48] Kyle Risi: and they started at 4am. 4am they were there, but the thing is though, right? So around about 7am, hordes of camera crews and various local news agencies started to get ready to broadcast this apparently historical event.[00:38:00]
[00:38:00] Kyle Risi: But when the media arrived, they were expecting to see at least a couple hundred thousand balloons in the balloon enclosure, but there weren't any. This event had experienced its first hiccup because the night before, a huge storm had swept through the city and torn down part of the balloon enclosure.
[00:38:16] Kyle Risi: So Treb's team was frantically trying to patch it up, and eventually they do get it fixed, but this essentially had set the entire operation back by a few hours. So when the kids finally did manage to start filling up balloons and releasing them into the net, they were under pressure and told that they had to work, even faster to make up for the lost time.
[00:38:36] Adam Cox: Now we know it's not your fault, but we are going to say that you need to work harder now.
[00:38:42] Kyle Risi: Poor kids.
[00:38:43] Adam Cox: You woke up at 4am, uh, we had to wait until 6am to start actually blowing up the balloons.
[00:38:47] Kyle Risi: So not only were they given like 800 balloons that they need to fill up, plus also now they had to do it a lot quicker, that just sucks out the fun out of an event that's supposed to be joyous and Come on Timmy!
[00:38:59] Kyle Risi: Faster! [00:39:00] Faster! So it's not a great start. So this delay meant that each child needs to work an average of four balloons per minute. Hang,
[00:39:08] Adam Cox: hang on. How does it, how long does it normally take? I reckon
[00:39:11] Kyle Risi: a good minute, at least 50 seconds.
[00:39:13] Adam Cox: Yeah, 30 seconds I'd say to do that, then tie the knot.
[00:39:17] Adam Cox: That's the thing, Is there someone there that they hand it over to then do the tying? Because that way you can make a production line. No, no, they're doing, they're doing it all. Yeah, this is not gonna work. It's not gonna work, is
[00:39:26] Kyle Risi: it?
[00:39:26] Adam Cox: I can imagine them like doing it and then all of a sudden, what happens if they let go and there's like balloons flying everywhere because they're not able to tie them up.
[00:39:34] Adam Cox: Yeah. And I imagine they're like, we didn't have surplus balloons. That's all you get is 800. You go find that balloon.
[00:39:40] Kyle Risi: And the thing is though these kids, they're filling up all these balloons and probably because of the time constraints, not a single one of them is allowed to suck in any of that helium and make a funny voice.
[00:39:48] Kyle Risi: Their like there's no time for that!
[00:39:50] Adam Cox: Imagine their fingers are gonna hurt at the end of this. Oh my
[00:39:52] Kyle Risi: god, that's the thing though.
[00:39:53] Kyle Risi: So they'd fill each balloon up, tie it off, release it up into the netted enclosure, and then just rinse and repeat, and then [00:40:00] slowly the roof of the net enclosure started to kind of lift higher and higher as it just got fuller and fuller. So it's pretty impressive to see when you look at videos of this on the internet. But all the kids started getting these nasty little blisters on their fingertips. And they were absolutely, under no circumstances, allowed to stop, no matter how much they were bleeding over their balloons.
[00:40:22] Adam Cox: Yeah, because if you, when you tie a knot and you get it caught, and it really hurts and you've got to try and pull that off. Yeah. And what about the parents?
[00:40:29] Adam Cox: They're like, no, you've got your duty to do.
[00:40:31] Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, there was various volunteers that just started rushing around, helping kind of apply plasters. Um, or as they say in the States, Band Aids. Um, and then the kids were just immediately put back to work.
[00:40:43] Adam Cox: I imagine like they've, uh, set up like some kind of medic tent.
[00:40:46] Adam Cox: And they're like being rushed in to quickly like swap in and like get their boo boos. We got another three here! Stat, stat! Quick, get the
[00:40:52] Kyle Risi: Band Aids! We're out of regular Band Aids! What have we got back there? I've got Spider Man band aids! That'll do! Have a pig? [00:41:00] Fine!
[00:41:00] Adam Cox: Yeah, so, poor kids.
[00:41:02] Kyle Risi: Yeah, but of course, filling balloons with, obviously, plasters on your fingers just made them even less nimble and more clumsy, which just ended up slowing the kids down even more.
[00:41:11] Kyle Risi: And so, As the hours continued to march by, more and more kids were just being plastered up, and they were tired, and they were hungry, and they were just getting slower and slower.
[00:41:21] Adam Cox: Yeah, this sound is really fun, and I'm guessing No, it's not, exactly. Their enthusiasm is waning.
[00:41:27] Kyle Risi: And so by one o'clock, the balloon enclosure was starting to bulge with these kind of multicolored balloons.
[00:41:33] Kyle Risi: And in my head, I 100 percent imagine that scene from Up, where Carl's house is just lifted up by those helium balloons. But in actuality, it just looked like a big brown kind of spot freckled kind of like jellyfish, just hovering over the city. Because it was so massive, you can't see the details of the colored balloon.
[00:41:51] Kyle Risi: So it just looked Brown.
[00:41:53] Adam Cox: Oh, right.
[00:41:53] Kyle Risi: So the schedule time to release was due in around an hour's time, and they still needed to fill. 600, [00:42:00] 000 balloons at this point.
[00:42:02] Adam Cox: Well, I guess if they've done 1. 4 million and that's still a world record. So they're, I guess people will come here to see 2 million.
[00:42:09] Kyle Risi: Exactly. And you're right. They're only three quarters of the way full, but then the news broke that a huge storm had changed course and was now heading straight for Cleveland.
[00:42:19] Kyle Risi: And so they had two options. They could either cancel the event and send everyone home and try again another day. Or, they could just release all the balloons that they'd already filled up so far and then go and seek shelter from the storm. So the city was like cancelling the event is completely out of the question.
[00:42:37] Kyle Risi: So releasing the balloons was the only option. And by this point they had now like filled up 1. 5 million balloons. So exactly as you said they'd already beat Disneyland's record right? So it would still be a huge raging success.
[00:42:51] Kyle Risi: And so everyone was told to get ready for launch as soon as possible. And when they were ready, the main radio station, the buzzard who were leading, [00:43:00] the event began leading the crowd in a countdown, at which point the net opened and 1. 5 million balloons erupted over the city like this big massive brown cloud much like a school of fish in the ocean before kind of like spreading out and then just engulfing kind of the skyscrapers in the immediate vicinity.
[00:43:19] Kyle Risi: Do you want to see a video?
[00:43:19] Adam Cox: Yeah,
[00:43:20] Kyle Risi: okay.
[00:43:21] Adam Cox: Oh wow, actually when you stand underneath it, it looks quite impressive.
[00:43:25] Kyle Risi: It kind of looks like they're all going backwards in reverse. Oh, it's
[00:43:27] Adam Cox: being released. Oh, it does look like a swarm.
[00:43:30] Kyle Risi: It's like a big giant jellyfish or a big giant freckle.
[00:43:33] Adam Cox: Yeah. Oh wow, it's kind of like engulfing some building.
[00:43:38] Kyle Risi: That is Terminal Tower in Cleveland, probably one of the most famous buildings. And just behind it is the public square,
[00:43:46] Adam Cox: I mean, it looks impressive when they were all together, but now it looks like a swarm of flies.
[00:43:51] Adam Cox: It does actually, like a swarm of bees. Yeah. But I imagine if you're driving along and you see that, that must have been quite cool, maybe. Oh, do you [00:44:00] think? I think, well, initially, like, if it's far away. But I'm sensing some troubles afoot with that storm.
[00:44:06] Kyle Risi: So, as the balloons were released into the crowd, they were all going mad and the radio host at the buzzard was going wild and you could barely understand what he was saying and he was just kind of screaming into the mic and he was like, this is it Cleveland, we did it, this is your time, we're not the mistake on the lake anymore, we'll never be the butt of an American joke again, We're a vibrant global city and we've got the Guinness World Record to prove it!
[00:44:32] Kyle Risi: Yay! And just everyone was going mental as these balloons just kind of engulfed this giant skyscraper and then just kind of drifted off.
[00:44:41] Adam Cox: Wow, people were desperate for this to be a success.
[00:44:44] Kyle Risi: They really were. And everyone just kept cheering as they watched these balloons just start spreading out over the city.
[00:44:50] Kyle Risi: But then, just as the excitement started to die down, and the crowds were beginning to disperse, things started to turn sour. Which, in [00:45:00] hindsight, Could have probably been predicted yet nobody saw coming. So I think it's a great time to take
[00:45:07] Kyle Risi: our final break of the show and when I come back, I'll tell you about the fallout of this historical landmark event that was supposed to lift Cleveland out into an era of prosperity.
[00:45:18] Adam Cox: Can't wait.
[00:45:19] Kyle Risi: So Adam, before the break we saw the release of the reduced 1. 5 million balloons into the sky over Cleveland. So as the balloons drifted off they were expected to just float up spread out further and further until eventually they popped or deflated before then falling down to earth over Canada.
[00:45:39] Kyle Risi:
[00:45:39] Kyle Risi: But the approaching storm started to push all the balloons back towards Cleveland. And as a result of the cold air and rain, this ended up pushing the balloons back down to ground level, closing in on the major population centers around Cleveland. And it just ended up blanketing the entire city, which ended up driving the city into a complete state of chaos.
[00:45:59] Adam Cox: Did they [00:46:00] not predict when this storm was coming that it was going to push back? Or did they not expect that to happen?
[00:46:05] Kyle Risi: Well, what it was is that after they released the balloons, the storm then changed trajectory causing all the balloons to be pushed back this way.
[00:46:12] Adam Cox: So Canada must have been pleased by this, because it's like, well, it's not on our land anymore.
[00:46:15] Kyle Risi: I guess so. And remember, the balloons were supposed to be biodegradable.
[00:46:18] Adam Cox: Ah, really?
[00:46:19] Kyle Risi: So, like, it wasn't a huge deal.
[00:46:21] Adam Cox: Okay.
[00:46:21] Kyle Risi: But we'll find out exactly what happened with that in a minute.
[00:46:23] Kyle Risi: Yeah,
[00:46:24] Adam Cox: but like over a hundred years, or?
[00:46:26] Kyle Risi: Well, more like a few months, but still a few months is enough time to do damage, right?
[00:46:30] Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah.
[00:46:31] Kyle Risi: So what happened, as these balloons blanketed the city, cars started crashing into buildings and each other. of the road became completely engulfed in tens of thousands of balloons just swirling around. And people literally couldn't see.
[00:46:47] Adam Cox: Well, if it's like how they engulfed that building I can imagine that.
[00:46:50] Kyle Risi: You even said to yourself, it was like a swarm. Now imagine that. Rather than up high, down low, and when
[00:46:56] Adam Cox: you're trying to drive,
[00:46:57] Kyle Risi: yeah, like, it's all just in your [00:47:00] face and stuff.
[00:47:02] Adam Cox: Oh Oh god, this is going from bad to worse, isn't it?
[00:47:04] Kyle Risi: Oh, it's going to get a lot worse. So flights, in and out of the city airport were completely cancelled or diverted to other nearby airports.
[00:47:12] Kyle Risi: Also, animals started going berserk at the sight of all these stray balloons just starting to settle down around them. And there were reports of various farmers on the outskirts of the city seeing animals just freak out and in particular horses as well because they're like pretty much skittish at the best of times, so many of these horses in a state of panic, injured themselves trying to leap over fences and paddocks and things like that.
[00:47:35] Kyle Risi: And the nutso thing was, all of this happened so extremely quickly that there wasn't even anything that anyone could do. And if you look online, there is all this incredible footage of these balloons just descending down and causing this absolute havoc.
[00:47:51] Adam Cox: There is that sort of footage, yeah, because imagine if it was today, everyone would have their smartphone out. And you'd see all this disaster.
[00:47:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah, for sure. So for [00:48:00] several hours, the entire city was just at a standstill. One dark consequence of the balloon release was that the local Coast Guard rescue helicopter had to make an emergency landing while they're in the middle of a search on Lake Erie.
[00:48:12] Kyle Risi: What had happened was that two men had gone out on the lake to do some fishing the previous night. And just before the storm came in, That was the storm that ended up damaging, the enclosure. The blue, oh yeah. Well, the storm had actually ended up capsizing their boat, which nobody knew about, until it ended up washing up on shore the next day.
[00:48:30] Kyle Risi: And so the Coast Guard had spent all of the following day out searching for them, but they had to land the helicopter because the pilot literally could not make out anything below because the balloons were just swirling around and they were just too distracting.
[00:48:44] Adam Cox: So what seemed kind of funny in a way, actually stopped people from being rescued.
[00:48:49] Adam Cox: Yeah, completely
[00:48:50] Kyle Risi: as well. So even the rescue teams that were on the water in boats, they had to suspend their search because the entire surface of the lake had been covered in tens of thousands of balloons, [00:49:00] which meant that it was impossible for anyone to spot someone bobbing up and down.
[00:49:04] Kyle Risi: So they just had to call the search off as well.
[00:49:06] Adam Cox: I just can't imagine balloons doing that.
[00:49:08] Kyle Risi: It's weather systems, right? It's the pressure. It's that's what normally keeps them up in the air. The density of that pressure is kind of forced them down. So I can see that happening, especially when you have 1. 5 million balloons.
[00:49:19] Adam Cox: So were, were these people ever rescued or did they?
[00:49:22] Kyle Risi: Well, so as you can imagine, all of the news coverage that was initially praising this historic event just like a couple hours before had instantly flipped. So for the next few weeks reports and experts were mercilessly mocking the city for doing something so reckless, so idiotic, and so needless and causing millions and millions of dollars in damage.
[00:49:43] Kyle Risi: And this negative press only compounded itself after the bodies of the two missing fishermen were washed up on shore. And so the main topic of conversation for the next few weeks was whether or not their lives could have been saved if it wasn't for BalloonFest.
[00:49:59] Adam Cox: That's sad, [00:50:00] like, that's not what we wanted from this. No, not at all. And then the press to turn on that, because if they were like, oh, this is great, this is great, and then go, oh no, now it's shit.
[00:50:07] Kyle Risi: Yeah, they just didn't see the consequences of it. Yeah,
[00:50:10] Adam Cox: they really should have called it off, hey, can we just do this in a week's time? They should
[00:50:14] Kyle Risi: have done in hindsight, but then at the same time, it's a loss of money, right?
[00:50:17] Kyle Risi: How often are do projects get pushed forward because of the fear or the risk of losing money? You're like, oh, we'll just do it anyway, because the cost of rescheduling is too great. So of course, this just ended up completely undoing everything that Cleveland has set out to achieve just in the previous 12 months.
[00:50:34] Kyle Risi: And in the aftermath of all of this, the entire country of Canada was completely outraged because a lot of the balloon debris started washing up on their side of the lake and even though the balloons were supposed to be biodegradable they took months to break down and essentially they ended up choking a bunch of animals that tried to eat them in the meantime so the entire event was just declared this huge environmental catastrophe.
[00:50:59] Adam Cox: Yeah. [00:51:00] I mean, do you remember, I don't know if you ever did this at your school, but I remember releasing balloons. I think it was on VE day and you would write your name on this ticket and then they would fly over Europe. And then the idea is that if they did reach land and someone would post it back or get in touch and very few balloons did ever do that, but some did, um, Did yours ever come back?
[00:51:22] Adam Cox: No one, it probably got lost at sea.
[00:51:25] Kyle Risi: So it was like a little message in, tied to like a little scroll or something?
[00:51:29] Adam Cox: Yeah, you'd put your name, I think your school address or whatever, and then people would write back into you with the ticket. Um, and that used to be like, that's how you celebrated, I think it was the 50th anniversary of VE Day.
[00:51:39] Adam Cox: So I can see like, this should have been like a really nice positive thing, but I think looking back at it in hindsight now, we're so much more socially aware of. By
[00:51:48] Kyle Risi: the impact on the environment.
[00:51:49] Adam Cox: Yeah, that, now, I don't think anyone would do this in the same way.
[00:51:53] Kyle Risi: Yeah, crazy.
[00:51:55] Kyle Risi: So meanwhile, back in Cleveland and the surrounding areas, hundreds of people started filing lawsuits [00:52:00] to sue the city for damages to their vehicles.
[00:52:02] Kyle Risi: And in one lawsuit, a woman who's prized Arabian horses ended up getting injured as a result of obviously them freaking out. She sued them for 100, 000 in compensation for the physical and emotional trauma caused to the horses, and of course to herself.
[00:52:18] Adam Cox: And the
[00:52:18] Kyle Risi: bitch
[00:52:18] Adam Cox: won!
[00:52:19] Adam Cox: 100, 000, that's a lot. Did they just trash her, I don't know, What is that? A field? I guess
[00:52:25] Kyle Risi: they injured themselves, right? Which they needed then treatments and things like that for cuts and wounds. Because Arabian horses, they are beautiful. They look like they're made from silk. Oh, really? And they're really skinny and they've got these really kind of like crocodile y stout noses.
[00:52:36] Kyle Risi: When you look at pictures of Arabian horses, they're gorgeous. Sometimes they're blonde. They're almost like platinum gold. I don't know if I've ever seen one. When you see one, you'll know. Because they're rEally shiny.
[00:52:46] Kyle Risi: But they ended up settling out of court. So we don't actually know exactly how much they actually settled for, but she sued initially for a hundred thousand dollars. And of course the wife of the dead fisherman also filed her own lawsuit and she sued for 3.
[00:52:59] Kyle Risi: 2 [00:53:00] million and again they settled out of court so we don't know exactly how much she got but it's fair to say that this entire event Was just a complete capital loss for the city, due to the costs of damages and lawsuits that were filed against them in the aftermath.
[00:53:13] Adam Cox: I can imagine once all the balloons have cleared, you just see like, you know in a disaster movie, where like a giant wave, or I don't know, Godzilla has trashed the place.
[00:53:22] Adam Cox: But in this case, all the balloons have like popped or whatever, and they're just hanging off cars, or street lamps.
[00:53:27] Kyle Risi: And everything's in a disarray, there's like dumpsters everywhere. The fires everywhere.
[00:53:30] Adam Cox: like cars crash through a shop window, it's on fire. All sorts.
[00:53:34] Kyle Risi: It's exactly what happened.
[00:53:36] Kyle Risi: So yeah, it was a complete capsule loss because remember during the fundraising phase they had raised a million dollars, so half of that was physically spent setting everything up and the rest. And then the rest, plus likely more, had to be paid out to settle, obviously, for all these damages. So Cleveland was left extremely embarrassed and plunged even deeper into being kind of the butt of a joke across America, bringing kind of like new meaning to the name that they had [00:54:00] all these years, Mistake on the Lake. Even bigger Mistake on the Lake.
[00:54:03] Adam Cox: Now, if they weren't a mistake before, they definitely are now.
[00:54:07] Kyle Risi: As for Treb, well, like, he quickly snuck out of Cleveland as fast as he possibly could and completely distanced himself from this event, and organizers, and of course, the city itself. And if you visit his website, there's just no mention of BalloonFest anywhere, not even Cleveland.
[00:54:23] Adam Cox: So he's still working in balloons?
[00:54:24] Kyle Risi: Yeah, he's like, he's still a celebrity, but he's like, yeah, I wasn't involved in that.
[00:54:28] Adam Cox: It wasn't me. That was my brother.
[00:54:30] Kyle Risi: And in an even bigger blow to the city, their world record for the largest balloon release. was only acknowledged in the 1988 edition of the Guinness World Records book, along with an announcement that the Guinness Book of World Records were no longer going to recognize balloon releases as a category of records, because of course they didn't want to encourage balloon releases that might obviously end up a catastrophe or like an ecological disaster.
[00:54:54] Kyle Risi: So they
[00:54:54] Adam Cox: got one mention in a book and then that was like this is the last time we'll ever talk about it.
[00:54:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah, but the thing is though, like, [00:55:00] Obviously, it's the responsible thing to do, like revoke that kind of record. But it does mean that Cleveland now holds that record in perpetuity.
[00:55:09] Adam Cox: Wow. So they did get something out of it.
[00:55:11] Kyle Risi: They did. So I guess just as they did with Disneyland, nobody can, fortunately, and also unfortunately, Rob them of their record.
[00:55:20] Kyle Risi: Is there, I feel like there should be like a monument in Cleveland, you know, in Harry Potter when they're in, is it Gringotts?
[00:55:28] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah. And you see all the muggs or whatever it is in that like big slab and stuff like Oh yeah. Or stone. I wonder if there's something like that in Cleveland where you've got like this sheer panic of just all these balloons swirling around all the kids
[00:55:40] Kyle Risi: with their like plasters on their fingers going boo boo. .
[00:55:43] Kyle Risi: Like, more bandages, more bandages! And, like, horses kind of, like, dead, hanging slumped over, uh, the, the, the edge of the monument. And cars like smashed up and like people like mourning the loss of their loved ones.
[00:55:56] Kyle Risi: And we'll say, never [00:56:00] forget.
[00:56:00] Adam Cox: This nice bronze statue that, yeah, starts off as this really nice pleasant kind of day and then by the end if you walk along it.
[00:56:06] Kyle Risi: Yeah. The carnage of 1986.
[00:56:09] Adam Cox: Yeah. Brilliant. They should do that.
[00:56:10] Kyle Risi: They do have a statue of Moses Cleveland in the, in the park.
[00:56:13] Adam Cox: Even though he wants nothing to be associated with the town.
[00:56:15] Adam Cox: Yeah, his
[00:56:16] Kyle Risi: eyes are rolling. It's like, oh god, this place again. And yeah, that is the story of the Cleveland Balloon Fest of 1986.
[00:56:25] Adam Cox: Wow, what a disaster. What
[00:56:28] Kyle Risi: a shit show.
[00:56:29] Adam Cox: Yeah, it would be funny if those people didn't obviously die. That's really sad. But yeah, I wonder if people get taught about this in schools.
[00:56:36] Adam Cox: Like, ah, we tried to do a co a good thing one time. That's why we don't do it anymore.
[00:56:40] Kyle Risi: I don't think Cleveland will be talking about it too much. . I think other people would, would like, like other states, would
[00:56:46] Adam Cox: they just admit 1986 from their record right off was off. Yeah.
[00:56:49] Kyle Risi: Yeah. What, 1986. Oh yeah. That didn't happen we skipped that year.
[00:56:52] Kyle Risi: Yeah.
[00:56:52] Adam Cox: Um, do I want to know more about this Treb guy? I want to know who he's still working with.
[00:56:58] Kyle Risi: Oh god, I have no idea. I mean, this is the [00:57:00] compendium. I can leave a couple resources and links in the, in the notes.
[00:57:03] Adam Cox: I want to like write in and like book him for an event and be like, so how do you protect, um, against pollution and just get, you know, a disaster happening with this?
[00:57:11] Kyle Risi: Yeah, like how do you feel that your event recruited all that child labor? Yeah. How does that make you feel? feel like in today's climate when it's such a hot topic.
[00:57:21] Adam Cox: Do you reckon those kids that now probably like in their 40s or 50s, they go, oh, that day in 1986. So
[00:57:26] Kyle Risi: shook. PTSD. Back in my day, I had to tie off 800 balloons.
[00:57:32] Kyle Risi: And you're complaining about one? I've
[00:57:34] Adam Cox: still got the scars to show it.
[00:57:35] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. Look at these oochie and ouchie boo boos. Uh, yeah. Should we run the outro?
[00:57:41] Adam Cox: Let's do it. Let's do it.
[00:57:43] Kyle Risi: And so that's another episode of the Compendium Podcast.
[00:57:45] Kyle Risi: If you've enjoyed today's episode, then do us a favor and hit that follow button right in the app that you're listening to us in. It really helps us a lot.
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[00:58:03] Kyle Risi: It's completely free to access this via Patreon, so don't let the subscribe prompt fool you. But if one episode isn't enough and you're craving up to four additional episodes every week then feel free to subscribe either way, we'd love you to join us to chat, find out what we're working on next, or just come and hang out. As always, set your app to automatically download new episodes as soon as they release, and leave us a review.
[00:58:27] Kyle Risi: Your support is so important to us. We release every Tuesday, and until then, remember. Not every uplifting idea leads to elevated outcomes. Sometimes they just blow up in your face.
[00:58:39] Kyle Risi: See you next time.
[00:58:40] [00:59:00]