A balloon-carried light effect is a special effect

Special effect

The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....

 carried by a balloon

Balloon

A balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...

, which can be fixed with a rope to the ground or free-flying.

Uses

Balloon-carried light effects can be used without safety concerns at events with a lot of people, because they do not require the use of flammable substances and there is no danger of falling debris as there is with fireworks

Fireworks

Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...

.
Nevertheless, the brightness is much lower, when non-dangerous light sources, such as lightstick

Lightstick

A glow stick is a single-use translucent plastic tube containing isolated substances which when combined make light through a chemical reaction-induced chemiluminescence which does not require an electrical power source...

s or battery-powered lamps are used.

Balloon-carried light effects cannot replace fireworks, but supplement them, because of their long lighting time (if lightsticks or battery powered lamps are used) and because of their inherent safety.
To realise a balloon-carried light effect, one or more balloons are used, capable of carrying a lightstick or a small battery powered lamp. Further it is possible to insert one or two small lightstick

Lightstick

A glow stick is a single-use translucent plastic tube containing isolated substances which when combined make light through a chemical reaction-induced chemiluminescence which does not require an electrical power source...

s into a transparent balloon.

It is also possible for larger balloon-carried light effects to use tethered balloons, which also can contain an electric cable power supply: these 'artificial moons' may be used for floodlight

High-intensity discharge lamp

High-intensity discharge lamps are a type of electrical lamp which produces light by means of an electric arc between tungsten electrodes housed inside a translucent or transparent fused quartz or fused alumina arc tube. This tube is filled with both gas and metal salts. The gas facilitates the...

ing.

Open-air concert use

Balloon-carried light effects are sometimes used on open-air concerts and similar events. They were used at the Gabin Tower Memorial Festival

Gabin Tower Memorial Festival

The Gąbin Tower Memorial Festival was a large Goa festival, which took place between August 4 and August 6, 2006 on the site of the former Warsaw Radio Mast at Gąbin, Poland as remembrance for the 15th anniversary of its collapse...

in August 2006.

For film and event use balloons are offered as suspended air-filled or tethered floating helium-filled. The latter for outdoors uses a 2 meter diameter balloon and 4 1000 Watt halogen tungsten lights inside, rising up about 10 m and withstanding only calm winds.

Fixed or pole balloons, spread like an umbrella, the upper half reflektive coated, the lower half semi-opaque light construction sites on highways or accident sites in case of emergency.