Giant helium airballoon - Full moon on-demand

Slowly the moon rises
The band on stage is Nephew and their performances on Denmarks most iconic stages are already legendary. The 6th of July 2018 was no exception.

The band had planned an encore with the song called “Sig månen langsomt hæver”(loosely translated “Slowly the moon rises”). Nephew had a vision of a giant helium airballoon slowly rising behind Orange Stage.

The surface were to be made with real moon craters and the moon lit up from the inside with LED lighting. The giant airballoon were to be filled with helium. Ibsens Fabrikker delivered the job in 19 days by printing high resolution images of the moon, taken by NASA, directly on the many lengths of PVC.

Miniatures of the giant airballoon was produced with the purpose of bouncing them around amongst the many thousands of people in the audience.

At Ibsens Fabrikker we have been producing floating commercials since 2005. Although, this is the first of its size and caliber, with such a massive printed surface. Up untill this point, the largest was a large helium airballoon with lighting that adorned the harbour at Aarhus Festuge under the installation “Harbour Moon”.

It was a great relief, when the testflying of the giant airballoon the day before the concert went well. But helium airballoons of this size are not toys. This moon has enough buoyancy to carry three adults and send them on a trip to the stratosphere.

Generally you could say, that it is relatively unproblematic to fill the airballoon with helium. The problem is to pull it down again. This was done with the help of a mechanical winch, that slowly pulled the moon down to safety.

In the video below, you’ll see the beginning of Nephew’s encore “Sig månen langsomt hæver” at Orange Stage. And as the lyrics go, the moon literally rises. The sight left the band awestruck, as the video clearly shows.

Without a doubt one of the most outstanding Ibsen-cases to date!