Meet the entrepreneur whose business is crafting perfect peak experiences

Treb Heining’s work is centred on making life’s big moments feel even bigger. After starting his career tying balloons at Disneyland at the age of 15, he became a master of the celebratory sciences – the go-to guy for grand balloon and confetti releases across the US. And while, from the vantage of our environmentally conscious times, it’s perhaps easy to be cynical about the impact of, for instance, releasing 1.5 million balloons into the sky at once, it’s an attitude that’s difficult to maintain once you’ve heard Heining discuss his craft.

This short documentary follows Heining at the end of 2021 in the days leading up to his most iconic annual job: the release of 3,000 pounds of confetti over Times Square in New York City as the clock strikes on the start of a new year. It’s a days-long operation, culminating in teams of volunteers tossing the colourful, biodegradable paper by hand for maximal effect. In his endearing portrait, the US director Joshua Charow captures the complex logistics and emotional exuberance of the event on Heining’s 30th year working the job – a task made all the more challenging and meaningful by the COVID-19 pandemic.