Is there an advantage to offering every animal imaginable? Or is it better to excel in 10 or 20?

I tend to do the latter. I feel its better to stick to balloons that are impressive and are audience pleasers rather than stretch yourself and make an animal the really doesn’t look like the animal in question.

Currently I offer 24 balloon sculptures, and 7 or those are hats.

It would also be helpful to know if ballooning is how you make most of your income or if it’s a side talent. For me it’s a great add on to magic shows. I suppose if you were considered a balloon expert, more would be expected of you.

Or, as the joke goes, do you make any animal, but they all look like a dog?

I think you can make hundreds and all of them look good and what they are suppose to be, it just takes time and depends on your preference. I've been doing it for 4 months and make about 70 things. Most of which are three to five balloon sculptures, and I do most of them for restaurant and line work. If someone asks for a monkey, which is made with one balloon, I have to put it on a palm tree with bananas. I can't help myself. I don't generally do dogs, but if I do I make it with a 350 body and 260 legs, ears, and tail. Everyone has their own preference, but I'm really funny about it. I want to be able to make whatever someone asks for. I don't like to say, "I'm sorry I can't make that." If someone asks for something I don't know, I go home and learn it. But that's just me, and this is what I do for a living. I'm OCD, detail is big to me, and everything I make has to look exactly what it is suppose to be or I simply won't do it. Some things I wouldn't do for awhile because I won't do something until I find a design for it I like. All of my balloons are medium to big, and when I'm at restaurants the people will say to their kids, "oh you picked a big one," I just tell them, "They're all big." lol I'm obsessed, but really 20 balloons will take you a long way. I understand I have too much time on my hands. If you love the balloons you're making then you know you're doing the right thing. Also when I do restaurant work to make it easier for people to choose I just make a menu of about 20 items for people to choose from. Any more and it would take them to long to decide. I simply rotate things in and out.

In my opinion, focus on being entertaining (funny, high energy, interactive, etc) as much or more than knowing how to do a ton of balloons.If someone hires you to be an entertainer, then be entertaining, not just a balloon vending machine. I know that's not really what you asked about, but...
Still, there is no reason to limit yourself on the number of balloons you make, but you don't need to learn a million designs all at once, even if you do want to learn a lot. everyone has their own approach as to how many they make, how fancy you tend to make them, etc. You'll end up naturally falling into your own approach. I tend to keep them kind of simple (but good) and crank them out, and focus on being funny. I hate it when I spend a bunch of time on a design and then it just pops 10 minutes later.

Kids will want the last thing that was made.

I have a large number of animals and hats that I can make but once I've made say an elephant then it seems every kid in line will ask for that. It isn't about how many different things you can make it's about the presentation. Like danfreed said, funny, high energy, interactive.

I have found that after making a number of different sculptures for a period of time you get the chops to be able to make things that are suggested to you on the spot.

In answer to the original post. I think it's best to do as many as you can. Push your best sculptures but also do the others.

I am not a balloon specialist. But I take pride in being able to make a reasonable selection of single balloon shapes - I can do maybe thirty different one-balloon animals. So I am not confined to dogs and swords. Normally I face a line and have to work fast, so that is what I have worked at.

I would love to branch out into multi-balloon shapes, and concentrate on quality. But that is a different market, and over here a smaller market.

The chief thing is to keep it entertaining - plenty of interaction with the kids, gags, bits of business. In the hands of some balloons are an art - but kids don't appreciate art. They just want a balloon.

Dead right there,Tony! queues are queues, and they won't wait forever.. ! Must get a copy of your DVD.. it sounds good. Can I nick all the lines please?..

Just going over to your site now..

DCB

The things about the original question is that is presupposes that we all use memorized formulas to make every balloon sculpture. Some of us approach balloon twisting artistically, and just like a skilled painter can paint anything with his brush (though sometimes practice and refinement is required), we can make anything with our balloons.

WORD!!

If I didn't have 2 typos in the first sentence, then yes, word up.