Hi everyone, it's been awhile! I hope you are all doing well.

I'm working on a new production and will surely be on here more often asking for help and showing ideas.

Currently, I'm making plans for constructing a large snake puppet that I want to weave through the audience for our show and also on-stage. Does anyone have experience building these types of puppets or ideas? I have done an internet search for ideas and have pinned some of them on Pinterest to show you what I'm thinking of.

Some of my key needs for this build are:

• -Operated by 3 puppeteers. I only have 6 total and need the other 3 free for other puppets and props
  -Relatively easy to pack and store.  I don't have much storage space or space when we travel so would like to be able to consolidate the puppet as much as possible

I've considered using hoops and fabric, almost to create a "Slinky" type effect so we can stretch it out when performing and compress for packing. I don't have much experience with these types of puppets though.

Any help or thoughts is deeply appreciated. Thank you all! It's nice to be back :D

You are on the right track thinking  you should use hoops covered in fabric. It used to be you could find the vinyl dryer hose that could work well for this and cover it in fabric.  Now they make them out of aluminum which works but I don't think it is as flexible or durable. You might not be able to find it in a diameter you want though.  We built a Kaa for a production of Jungle Book once much like the one you see in one of your pictures. We used boning (you find it in fabric shops).  We sewed a muslin fabric tube and then attached the boning to it on the outside. You can buy boning that is called Ridgilene. It is plastic and you can sew through it. We then covered this base in the fabric we wanted the snake built out of. For the most part a single puppeteer manipulated it via the head and a hand hold about three or four feet back from the head. If we wanted more action a second puppeteer maned the back half of the puppet via hand holds.

Thanks for the tips Shawn. How did you like working with boning and muslin? How was storage for the puppet? Did you use the boning in a spiral or as "ribs"? I like the idea of using muslin too, that should be cheaper than what I was thinking but it sounds like you had another layer of fabric for the skin. Any chance you have pictures?

Boning is fine to work with especially the Ridgilene that you can sew through.  We made hoops and not a spiral. He compacted down some for storage but no too much. We did not like seeing the ridges of the hoops so we also covered the muslin in a layer of batting before we covered in fabric. This kind of stiffened everything up and made it so he did not compress down much. If you don't mind the skin layer not being perfectly smooth and can live with the look of the hoops then you should get more compacting.

No sorry I don't have any pictures.

I made a giant Whale puppet like the Chinese dragons you see walking down the street.  It was made with hula hoops that had an open section where a dowel rod was attached with screws.  The bottom of the whale was open so the people could get inside upright and their legs showed below, we had streamers for water hanging down to hide legs more.  The people held the dowel rods as we walked around.  The first person had a drawstring thru a small curtain ring that opened and shut the mouth. The three people inside had to practice walking around together and they did not have good visual of outside so we put tape marks on the stage so they would not get off track.  If you are going to walk around a crowd then you will need to think about seeing where you are going for safety or have handlers around you to help.  Our hoops were inside thin cotton fabric but stretched so tight that there was not much dip between the "ribs"  The hoops were also used for the mouth so the whole thing was very light, more like a kite than a stuffed puppet. It was easier than I thought it would be and worked very well. The design came with the musical we did. I looked at the pictures you have and I like the way people are outside with long poles moving the snakes. If you have puppeteers in costumes they will blend in and if that snake's mouth is moving the focus will be on the head of snake, not handlers.  One thing we learned with a smaller snake puppet was to put some weight on the forked tongue of the snake on underside, that way as you move the head or mouth the tongue will also move because of the weight on tongue tip. I only have a VHS tape of the whale in the performance not sure how to get you a picture of that.  Good luck keep looking for ideas and you will come up with something great.
Kite building supplies have tubes and connectors that make light weight circles.
https://goodwinds.com/kiting-supply