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Confetti's come a long way since I was a kid. We were doing "Snow White and the 7 dwarfs" for our cub scout pack and in one scene, after mopping up, the bucket gets pitched into the audience. The "Mop Water" was all the hole punches that had been collected in my dad's office for the past 3 months since the idea of doing a play at a pack meeting had been planned.
Why
Confetti is a visually amazing. It drifts in the wind and settles down onto your crowd. Once it's on the ground, anyone can pick it up and throw it again for another round. It captures everyone's attention and they reach up to catch it, or at least try.
The first time we did confetti wasn't a dance party, it was New Years Eve and we bought a pack of confetti cannons. At Midnight Eastern, we tried to have the kids ring in the new year by holding the cannon and having them twisting the bases to set them off. Massive miss, the twist base mechanism was too much for the kids to spin. I tried on my own and as soon as the first one went off, the kids went running into the mess that was now falling from the sky.
Don't Buy Foil Confetti
Don't Buy Foil Confetti
The second time we did confetti cannons on New Years Eve, the cannons were foil confetti. We spent the next 6 months finding bits of foil all over our backyard. From that point forward, I made sure that I specifically bought "Biodegradable Confetti Cannons" when I wanted confetti for outside use. Currently I have 8 of this specific cannon ready for whenever I want them.
Just Confetti
Confetti cannons are loud when they go off. At a full blown dance party, that's fine because everyone has ear plugs in and is having a great time. They also need a ton of space to go off. The photo from New Years shows the confetti shooting up 20 feet over the cannon that shot it off at least. That's not great for indoors.
That's what led me to buying a pack of 20,000 pieces of confetti. For any indoor dance party, this stuff is amazing. In the pack it's packed pretty tightly so the first thing I had to learn was to grab a handful and just start shaking it up between my hands to loosen everything up. Without that step, it didn't really separate and fall right.
After that step, it spread nicely when thrown and once we had a good handful on the floor, the kids started to pick it up and throw it back up again and again. Pickup was super easy with just a vacuum hose pointed in the right direction sucking it all up after we wrapped up.
Not Just Confetti
This stuff is UV (Black Light) reactive. If you already have UV lights, great. If not, whenever you make that upgrade, it will pop even more. For roughly $20, this is a great way to add a bit of unexpected punch to your kids party. It's paper so it should break down if you lose track of a few pieces outside. Best of all, you can slip a handful or two into your pockets and pull it out without getting their attention and boom, confetti tossed over everyone's heads.
Confetti Cannons
When you're outside, have some space, and noise isn't a big concern, the POP of a confetti cannon really grabs everyone's attention and get a lot of them moving to be underneath the confetti when it falls.
The first time I used these, I had them tucked into my truck bed from the beginning of the night. My kids had no idea they were there. I waited until I had a big song playing. Just as the song hit big, I launched confetti over all the kids dancing.
Off with A boom
From a music standpoint, that's exactly the right thing to do, but from a dance party for kids, it was a miss. I'm not sure exactly what is in these in terms of a charge, but it is some kind of explosive charge.
The way they work is that you twist the base and it sets off that charge shooting the confetti out. Make sure these are pointing up into the air. Do not point them at anyone. These bring several safety risks.
Surprise - If people aren't ready, you can really shock them with the noise
Fire - I would be careful setting these off in dry grass. Without knowing the details of the launch mechanism, I worry about a spark catching a piece of paper.
Slips - A bunch of paper can make the floor slippery. On rough concrete, the paper got smashed up, but on a slick floor, it could be a challenge.
Header Photo by Osman Yunus Bekcan on Unsplash
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