The world near lose Boy George to a discotheque ball .
In 1998 , the soda singer wasrehearsingfor a performance in Dorset , England , when a monumental mirrored ball press 62 pounds dead fell from the roof , with Boy George abide straight underneath it . The ball raked the side of his face and pick apart him to the floor . A wire had click . According to perceiver , it came just 2 inch from land directly on his head .
The skinny - death experience was the latest in a series of indignities — not for the “ Karma Chameleon ” singer but for the bollock , which defined the seventies nightclub scene in much the same way as bell - bottomed suits and cocain . Reflecting igniter and hanging like a trophy over reveler , the ball would reel recently into the night . It was fashionable yet simplistic , a siren call for people who wanted to move underneath it and forget their troubles .
But the clod did n’t spring up withdisco . To interpret its story , you have to go much further back and dig into the object ’s honest party - animal authors : electricians .
Mirror, Mirror
consort toVice , the first published cite of a novelty mirrored ball came in an 1897 issue ofThe Electrical Worker , a trade publication for mating workers in Charlestown , Massachusetts . Inside the magazine was a verbal description of the organization ’s annual get - together and its various decorations . A carbon spark lamp was said to have been positioned to speculate off of a “ mirror ball . ”
It was probable a one - off initiation that was custom - made for the gathering : The mirrored ball as a line of work initiative did n’t certify itself until a man namedLouis Bernard Woesteapplied for a patent of invention for a “ unnumerable reflector ” in 1917 . The sphere was offered for sales agreement by his Cincinnati - based company , Stephens and Woeste , beginning in the 1920s and promise to satisfy dance halls with “ dancing Pyrophorus noctiluca of a thousand chromaticity . ”
The former globes were 27 inches in diameter and covered in over 1200 tiny mirror , add a glisten sheen of color to amusement venues . The dance halls of the era had no strobe light , fog machines , or glow stick ; the atmosphere was more button-down . The numberless reflector suit the distance perfectly , and a act of them popped up at dances as well as jazz ball club and skating rinks — and even Circus , where animals might balance themselves on reenforce reflector . ( The name itself was another issue : the great unwashed took tocallingit amirror ballorglitter ballrather than Woeste ’s slimly stuffy description . )
The ball were modestly successful but never a runaway hitting , and Stephens and Woeste eventually distanced itself from their production . The baton ( or nut ) was picked up in the 1940s and 1950s by theOmega National Productscompany of Louisville , Kentucky , which had experience pee-pee flexible mirror sheets forArt Decofurniture of the earned run average . Some people wanted their Kleenex boxes to sparkle ; others , likeLiberace , wanted an entire pianissimo breed in the reflective stuff .
Mirrored ball were a natural progression , and Z made them to order for dance halls . But their status as a bit ofpop cultureiconography did n’t total until the 1970s .
Saturday Night Fever
The arrival of disco music in the 1970s ushered in a new undulation of nightlife . All over the country , immature adult were growing becharm with the sound , which waseasyto dancing to and carried with it a kind of sensory overburden . gild used lights to create atmosphere , like supporter were inside a pinball machine . It was the new escapism : Hoisted richly over crowds , the ball was the everlasting accessory .
Z was positioned to dominate the mart , and they did . During disco ’s heyday in the mid-1970s,90 percent of America ’s supply of disco ballswas sourced from Omega . Twenty - five plant workers would make 25 balls each per day by hired man , cautiously stick on the meditative sheets to metallic element globes . A 48 - inch model might trade for $ 4000 , or roughly $ 20,000 today . But order happily paid , knowing the “ disco globe ” was the perfect full complement to their décor .
The orb practically get a co - starring credit inSaturday Night Fever , the 1977 smash hit flick star John Travolta as Tony Manero , an ennui - ridden New Yorker who feel escape in the city ’s disco music scene .
The film made disco bigger than ever , with anestimated20,000 disco club popping up around the country . A couple in Bloomington , Indiana , evenexchangedwedding vows underneath one , while the Bee Gees ’s “ How Deep Is Your Love ? ” pulsed through the verbaliser . In Fort Worth , Texas , a society named Disco Deliteofferedmobile disco music services , with a orchis and intelligent equipment available to twist any boring area into a swinging involvement . But the love affair with the disco iconography was n’t work up to last .
Fading Out
Disco ’s death was due in part to a vogue that had buy the farm but was hastened in some part by a recoil . In 1979 , a promotional stunt at Chicago ’s Comiskey Park during a baseball game plot went awry after invitee were told to wreak disco music records to ruin . Disco wipeout Nightturned into a catastrophe , with the Chicago White Sox storm to forfeit after the crowd — and the bonfires — grew out of control condition . ( The night had as much to do with racism as it did anti - disco persuasion , with meeter also burning R&B phonograph recording in vast quantity . )
Whether it was stimulate by such pushback or not , disco ’s time in the glare was more or less at an goal ; few people were daze by the ceiling - hung globe , a symbolisation of an outdated fad . By the time Travolta made a continuation toSaturday Night Fever , 1983’sStaying Alive , there was nary a disco ball in heap .
The ball has n’t been wholly relegated to chronicle . In 2016 , in tribute to Omega , the city of Louisville — theunofficial disco ball working capital of the world — built an 11 - foot , 2300 - Cypriot pound ball at a price of $ 50,000 . Omega still makes the ball , though they ask just one actor , not 25 , to fill orders .
Depending on where you are , you might stumble across one at a concert for its kitsch note value , or even at vivify buildings . For year , a Rite Aid in Manhattan puzzled patron with its disco ballmountedon the ceiling . The building was once a roller rink .
As for Boy George : After being hear for a bruised ear back in 1999 , he retort to the stage later that evening for his performance . “ I have survived and I ’m still here , ” he say , a persuasion that could also be shared by the ball .
