The Balloon Race

Active / inactive balloons

The inactive balloons are balloons that have been created but payment not completed. On most occasions the buyer returns, starts again and buys a different balloon. There’s lots of reasons for this (listed below) but the most common is not having your card details to hand after creating the balloon.

If you’re paid cash for an inactive balloon you can make it active in the “administer the balloons” section of your admin area.


When selling anything online there are always failed payments as users play around with the software before they buy. They will want to see all the balloon designs, think of a good username and message.


If you change the list order to emails (by clicking the top tab above emails) you will most likely see they have purchased another balloon and this balloon is active.


Why are the balloons inactive?

There are a number of reasons for inactive balloons:

  1. The payment fails
  2. Customer-entered CVC code does not match the code on file with the card-issuing bank
  3. Customer-entered zip/postal code does not match the code on file with the card-issuing bank
  4. They get distracted during the buying process (and return later buying a new balloon).
  5. They get to the payment page & then hit the "back" button to change their balloon. Hitting the back button and changing balloon details adds an extra balloon to your balloon count.
  6. The user is on free insecure WiFi
  7. The 4G connection fails.
  8. A balloon is setup and the buyer doesn't have their card details to hand - when they return to the page it has expired for security reasons. They then buy a new balloon.
  9. Creating a balloon is more fun than paying for it.

Balloon Count doesn’t match my Paid Count

Q: Our balloon sales are going well - but I have a question - why does the page say 201 total balloons but 166 paid entries?   I haven't added any postal entries.

The extra balloons have been created but are unpaid - so they’re inactive. Usually the buyer returns and sets up a new balloon.

You can see all the inactive balloons by clicking “administer the balloons” in your admin area.

Extra balloons are also created when the ‘back’ button is used to change details before paying.

In the above example there are 166 active balloons. We can check this by clicking on the “Top 10” leaderboard on the front page to get to the main leaderboard. If we drill down we can see there are 166 active balloons on the leaderboard. The balloon price has been set to £3 per balloon -
166 x £3 = £498 so the total is correct.

To save confusion I could hide the “Total Balloons” count and hide the inactive balloons. I feel it’s better to be transparent plus you can take cash payments for the inactive balloons and make them active.

Always be careful accessing the “administer the balloons” section when your sales are busy. If a balloon has just been created it will show on your list as “inactive”. Whilst you’re looking at your list the buyer completes their payment and on the server their balloon is now active (but on your screen it’s inactive). If you then save your changes you’ll save the newly paid balloon as inactive.

Also - be careful accessing this page when the balloons are moving. The balloons move at 25 minutes past and 55 minutes past every hour. If you login at 24 minutes past and save 2 minutes later you’ll save over the latest movement.