I heard a news piece the other day in which the commentator wondered what all the circus actors are going to do now that Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus has gone out of business. They're going to work at tradeshows, that's what.

I do not remember what TJ was making but I assure you it is not what some of you are thinking.

BALLOON MAN

T.J. Temple was born for trade shows. As I watched him blowing up and shaping balloons into the most imaginative balloon sculptures I have ever seen, I couldn't help but think loud noises aren't a problem for him. My hypothesis was verified when I visited his website, tjtemple.com. It represents both TJ's Super Balloons and T.J.'s Temple of Boom, where he is described as the "Largest Fireworks Dealer in Southern Missouri." It probably comes as no surprise that he is one of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet and I'm just sorry I don't live near West Plains, Missouri, where I could hire him for parties to blow up balloons then blow up fireworks.

When he's not twisting balloons and selling fireworks, T.J is an application analyst at Ozarks Medical Center and he volunteers on the Board of MUSE, which puts on the trade show. That's how I had the good fortune to watch him make the sculptures. I have to say I was a little disappointed to see that he uses a hand pump to inflate the really long balloons, but have to admit you could get really light headed from blowing up balloons for a couple of hours. Nevertheless, I was able to capture a video of him blowing up one of the special balloons and decided it was a good time to learn how to make an animated gif. So I did that in Photoshop, using these instructions.

WANDERING KARAOKE MAN

It all started when I saw that this cowboy guitar playing singer had an attachment sticking off the neck of his guitar that held his phone and his phone had cheater lyrics on it! I thought that was pretty cool, so we got to talking and, of course, I had to sing with him. Watch the video to hear some not very good Patsy Cline on my part but some very good harmonization and guitaring on his part, including an on-demand key change which impressed the hell out of me. And his chorus girl sidekicks are my new best friends (because I met them AFTER I met the girls from Saratoga). When they're not singing at tradeshow events they sing in a women's barbershop group (are they called beauty parlour groups?). Were it not for those racey costumes I think this could be a really fun job. This was as rowdy a tradeshow event as I can remember, but if you look in the background you can see that none of my neighbors even noticed that we were having a good time. Which is as it should be.

THE MONEY BOOTH

It's about as easy to get money from this as it is to bag a stuffed animal with one of those crane games at Walmart.

Hard as I tried, I was never able to capture a video of the money blowing booth in action, and maybe that is just as well because I always feel a little sorry for the person inside the booth while everyone else stands outside cheering/laughing at them. If you have never seen a money blowing booth, the witless fool is sealed inside the booth as the vortex of paper money swirls around them. They grab, usually unsuccessfully, at the flying bills. I reckon you get to keep whatever you can hold onto but I have honestly never stopped at one long enough to inquire about the rules. It's not my thing. If I want people to laugh at me I'll just sing, thank you.

MASSAGES

Massages are another thing I am not into - not at a spa and certainly not at a tradeshow - but if massages are your thing I expect this is a very enjoyable feature. And you have to remember that all of these things are sponsored by a vendor so, seeing as how I am a vendor and not a potential customer, I would not exactly be welcome to slouch out in one of these massage chairs anyway. So it's just as well that I'm not a fan.

THE COLORING WALL

I actually thought this was pure genius. I had already copped one of the coloring books from this vendor, medisolv (all lower-case and without the -e, which is meant to be very edgy, I think) and I will be reporting on that later in my post on swag. But a couple of days into the show, they also hung up a coloring wall and I would have liked nothing better than to just hang out over there and color but I was too busy singing with the wandering cowboy. As competitor booth envy goes, this one ranked pretty high up there.

THE DONKEY

I don't know who I felt more sorry for - the donkey or his handler. But at least I didn't have to feel sorry for the cleaning people because they were very careful to lay down a LOT of plastic for this duo to stand on. All I know is that I once owned a miniature Sicilian donkey, which is what this one looks like, and I can tell you that getting a donkey into a tradeshow exhibit hall could not have been a walk in the park. What was the point of having a donkey at a tradeshow? Beats me. I guess it was a photo op. Because what's the point of doing anything anymore if you don't share the photo?

DAMN BIG BOOTS

See last sentence, above.

Tradeshow Entertainment