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Collect+ and Love2Shop branded Ballnado Grabber with orange header and lower wrap in a shopping centre

Ballnado Grabber

Hire from £595.

What the Ballnado Grabber Is

The Ballnado Grabber is a transparent cylindrical booth - you step inside, the fan starts, and foam balls blow around you in a whirlwind. You've got 30 seconds on the digital timer to grab as many as you can before the airflow stops and the door unlocks. It's the same basic machine as a Cash Cube or Grab a Grand, except instead of paper tokens or fake notes flying around, it's soft foam balls - which makes it a fair bit easier to handle indoors without bits of paper drifting under the venue's fire doors.

You'll see it called a whirlwind ball grabber, a tornado ball grabber, or just a Ballnado depending on which hire company you're talking to. The machine is built by Game Works Creative in Ipswich - they've been making cash cubes and ball grabbers for getting on for 20 years - and the one we send out is owned and maintained in our warehouse in Rotherham, not subbed in from another supplier.

The cylinder is just over a metre in diameter and stands about two metres tall, so it fits under a standard function-room ceiling but still towers above a table-top game. The LED strip around the top rim changes colour, and the digital timer can be mounted overhead, on a rear pole, or on a tripod so the crowd can see the countdown. It plays well at exhibition stands because the action is visible from twenty feet away - you can see the balls flying and the player chasing them round the cylinder, which tends to pull people over from the aisle without anyone on your stand having to wave them in.

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AWS and Softcat branded Ballnado Grabber at a corporate conference with city-skyline wrap and LED lighting

How It Works and How It's Used

One player steps inside, the door closes, and they hit the start button - or a member of our team starts it for them. The fan kicks in, the balls lift off the floor, and the 30-second countdown begins. The balls are lightweight foam, so they fly around the cylinder rather than dropping straight back down, and the player has to snatch them out of the air and hold on. It's harder than it looks because the airflow knocks the balls out of your hands as fast as you grab them.

We've hired this unit out for exhibition stands, product launches, shopping-centre promotions, corporate parties and brand activations. The photos on this page show it branded for Collect+ and Love2Shop at a mall concourse, for AWS and Softcat at a tech conference, and in a Snow Storm winter theme with white balls and festive decorations. The Snow Storm variant goes out regularly for Christmas parties - we switch the balls to white, add the winter backdrop, and it reads as a completely different game.

If you want to run it as a competition, we can supply a leaderboard stand alongside it. If you want prizes involved, different coloured balls can score different points - a mechanic a few of our clients have used for brand activations. The standard setup is just "grab as many as you can in 30 seconds" - which works fine without any extra rules.

Enquire About Branding
Snow Storm Ballnado with white foam balls swirling inside the cylinder, red LED lighting, and a winter-themed backdrop
Seconds per round
30
Cylinder diameter
1050mm
Years hiring since 1999
25+
Insurance cover
£5M
1500W power
240V

Where It Tends to Work

  • Exhibition Stands and Trade Shows

  • Brand Activations and Product Launches

  • Corporate Parties and Evenings

  • Shopping Centre Promotions

  • Christmas Parties and Winter Events

  • Freshers Fairs and University Events

Size

Floor Space Height
Unit size: 1050mm diameter (~3.5ft) 2020mm (~6ft 7in)
With header: - 2320mm (~7ft 7in)
Required space: 7ft x 6ft 7ft 6in

The rear fan unit adds roughly 500mm x 500mm x 500mm behind the cylinder - we factor this into the setup space when we plan the layout.

Suitability

  • Indoors on Artificial Grass
  • Indoors on Hard Surface
  • Outdoors on Grass
  • Outdoors on Hard Surface

Suitable for adults and children. The player stands on the built-in floor inside the cylinder, so there's no climbing or physical exertion involved - it's a reaction and coordination game rather than an active one.

How the Game Runs

The Ballnado is fully automated. A single button press starts the built-in fan, the digital timer, and the LED lighting together. The round runs for 30 seconds, then the fan stops, the balls drop, and the door unlocks for the next player. There's no need for a dedicated operator if you're running it casually - though we can supply a trained attendant if you'd rather your own team stayed on the stand.

Because the whole cycle is self-contained, it keeps a queue moving at a busy stand. A round takes about 45 seconds from door-close to door-open, so the line doesn't back up even when the stand is busy.

Branding

The cylinder takes a full wrap on the lower half and a header band around the top rim, both of which we print, apply and remove in-house at our Rotherham workshop. The photos on this page show wraps for Collect+, Love2Shop, AWS and Softcat - all produced and fitted by our own team.

Panel Price
Printed bottom board / lower wrap £95
Scoreboard top £29
Full front wrap £69

The printed bottom board is retained by us for future events at no extra charge - we remain the owners of it. Sticker transfers for the scoreboard top and front wrap are produced for a single hire period. If you want a full custom header panel or top crown branding, mention it when you enquire and we'll work up what fits.

What's Included

  • Delivery, setup and collection by our own team in our own vehicles
  • The Ballnado cylinder, fan unit, digital timer and LED lighting system
  • Foam balls (standard colour mix; custom colours available on request)
  • £5 million public liability insurance as standard
  • Risk assessments and method statements emailed to you or your venue before the event

Power is 240V, 1500W - one standard mains socket is usually enough. If your venue has no power nearby, we can bring a generator - just mention it when you enquire and we'll include it in the quote.

Delivery charges and minimum order values may apply depending on hire duration and location. We can usually discount multiple items on the same delivery - contact us for a quote.

Where We Deliver

The warehouse is 25,000 sq ft, sat in Rotherham five minutes from the A1, M1 and M18, which puts most of the UK within a day's run. We regularly deliver exhibition and interactive games to NEC Birmingham, ExCeL London, Manchester Central, Olympia London, Harrogate Convention Centre, ACC Liverpool, SEC Glasgow and Telford International Centre, with Europe-wide delivery available for larger packages.

We own and maintain 95% of the kit we hire and have been supplying exhibition games, interactive games and carnival games since 1999, so the Ballnado turns up tested and ready, with one delivery, one invoice and one contact for your whole event.

Common Questions

Can the Ballnado run with tokens instead of foam balls?

Yes - the same machine can be loaded with paper tokens or fake notes instead of balls, which turns it into a Grab a Grand or Cash Cube. The fan speed and timer stay the same; only the contents of the cylinder change. If you want to switch formats between events, that's straightforward - we just change the fill on site.

How long is each round, and can it be changed?

The standard round is 30 seconds, which is what the digital timer is set to out of the box. The timer can be reprogrammed to a different length if your event needs shorter or longer turns - just let us know when you book and we'll set it up before we arrive.

Can the balls be colour-matched to our brand?

Yes. The foam balls come in a range of colours - red, blue, green, yellow, orange, black, magenta, purple, turquoise and white. We can fill the cylinder with a single colour, a mix, or include one differently-coloured ball as a prize trigger. If you have a specific Pantone or brand match in mind, tell us and we'll check what we can source.

What's the difference between a Ballnado and a Cash Cube?

They're the same physical machine. A Cash Cube (or Grab a Grand) uses paper tokens or fake banknotes as the fill; a Ballnado uses soft foam balls. The Cash Cube format works better if you're giving away prizes based on token value; the Ballnado format is more visually striking because the balls fly higher and faster than paper, and there's no cleanup of stray notes afterwards. We can supply either format from the same unit.

Gallery

  • Collect+ and Love2Shop branded Ballnado with orange header and lower wrap

  • AWS and Softcat branded Ballnado at a corporate conference with city-skyline wrap

  • Digital timer on tripod showing the 30-second countdown next to the AWS Softcat Ballnado

  • Love2Shop branded Ballnado in a function room with promotional table

  • Collect+ and Love2Shop Ballnado with orange leaderboard stand in a community hall

  • Collect+ Love2Shop Ballnado next to a Space Carnival vertical banner

  • Ballnado inside a white marquee showing the digital timer reading "GAME TIME 30 Seconds"

  • Snow Storm themed Ballnado with white foam balls and red LED lighting on artificial turf

  • Snow Storm Ballnado at a Christmas event with festive decorations and a countdown timer

Related Products

The Ballnado sits naturally alongside prize giveaways and reaction games. Grab a Grand is the same machine with tokens instead of balls, and the prize wheels, vaults and quiz machines below round out a competition-focused stand. If you want a hand putting a package together,

Hire the Ballnado Grabber

Send us your dates, venue and your stand number and expected footfall and we'll come back with a quote. If you want the Ballnado branded, switched to tokens, or paired with other prize games, mention it in your message and we'll work up some options.

Is it on grass or hard standing?
Do you have electricity on site (within 25 metres)?
Do you require the items to be staffed by us?
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