Airspace was Established in 1990...

Debbie had a party shop which imported balloons and sold party stock etc. Keith was employed by Plessey at this time as an Industrial Chemist.

Keith left Plessey when we moved to Noordhoek in 1995 - we took the plunge and we have never looked back.

With Debbie's graphic art background and through the party shop we had a 2.5m ball manufactured through a Jo'burg inflatable supplier and there was a mistake on the artwork and the ball had to be re-made. This became our first pattern.

Keith researched the fabrics which are still imported today and Debbie learnt fast how to art large inflatables.

We shut the party shop and started in our garage in Muizenberg and called the company Airspace Promotions. A year later we were in Honeywell Road, Kirstenhof and a year after that moved to Noordhoek. We built a 150 square meter double storey "garage" without internal flooring onto our house.

9 months later we moved into Fish Eagle Park into 3 factory units and 800 square meters of space. Around this time the "promotions" part of the company name was dropped and a new logo was created and Airspace Inflatables made its mark. We have been in Fish Eagle Park for 12 years now.

In the beginning all the patterning was done by hand and scaled up onto paper to create the pattern which was cut out by hand. Then this pattern would be placed onto the PVC fabric and marked and cut out by hand. Everything was done manually by hand. Now we have a 3D design package and a computerised cutting table to speed up production.

The CMT is all manually done. In the beginning a 6.5m blimp would take all day to seal by hand, each panel taking about 45 mins. Now our sealing machine can make a 6.5m blimp in 2 hours. Our blimp's artwork used to be hand painted because of the curved surfaces, now a lot of it is still done the manual way but by airbrush techniques and sometimes digitally printed.

We also have no business degrees behind us and have never had time to do any proper business training, everything we have learnt is "hands on". Keith's passion keeps the business going and Debbie handles the accounts, staff and everything else. We have worked together for 19 years now and are equal partners in the business and have been since day one, but there is still passion for the product. It's our "first born" and we are still alive and looking forward to World Cup soccer 2010. Years and years of marketing behind the scenes is leading to this climax next year and then beyond.

Our company is the only one of it's kind in the Cape Town area. We are innovative and never say no to anything and as a result have produced some really interesting inflatables. We have always met every deadline no matter how tight they have been even if it means working through the night to create the impossible for the client's launch. Our motto is - If you can imagine it, we can make it.

We are also sole distributors for Africa for the B-Air blowers - pics of these are on the website under accessories.

Keith is a qualified Industrial Chemist (researched materials/understands compositions of materials and application of all aspects of manufacture from the technical side.

Debbie was actually a typesetter before DTP arrived - and has many years of hands on graphic art and 12 years experience in the printing industry.

Keith sourced fabrics and did the design and manufacture/production of inflatables and Debbie's art side allowed for the artwork to be applied.

Debbies part of the business is all staff related and the accounting side ie. everything accounting. 95% of all our products are manufactured in house from design, through to production ie. CMT and sealing, through to art - both "hands on" and digital printing, through to finishing ie. accessories, bags, etc, through to despatch - wherever the client is in the world. No job is to small or too complex for Airspace. 19 years of incredible projects under our belt - the client list is endless.

We also have use specialist equipment consisting of 12mt computerised cutting table, digital printers, 3D design packages, High Frequency (HF) welders, hot wedge welders and double needle lockstitch industrial sewing machines.

A few projects and achievements which we are particularly proud of are:

• IPL closing ceremony -- 3 x aerial artists suspended under 5.5mt diameter helium balls - first in South Africa and "locally made"
• Confederations cup -- Closing ceremony - 8.3mt diameter projection ball manufactured in 3 days and operated in conjunction with Gear house to create a 360 deg projection of events and faces of Africa and the confederations cup - plus the 8 x 2m helium Flag balls ie. one flag ball representing each country - it was awesome to see.
• 19 years of projects - proud of them all.
• Sent a crew to various African countries with specialised lighting balloons for local and international film shoots
• Worked on Disney movies - we made the sauna suit for the race horse favourite and the hot air balloons for Racing Stripes.
• Amongst other movies, we also made a 8m "Happy Feet" penguin which went to Australia, and a large number of international commercials and music videos. - some others include the "loch ness monster" in a Brandy advert and the Body on Tap bottle for related advert, and the large red post box for a Telkom advert.

Click here to see our client list and portfolio