World’s Largest Ballooning Event In October Hosted 550 Balloon Teams

As the world’s oldest aeronautical sporting activity, balloon flying continues to be popular. The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is claimed to be the world’s largest ballooning event, and we now have a summary of how much activity took place at the 2016 event.

October 1-9 marked the 45th Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta presented by Canon. This year there were 550 registered balloon teams, including 108 special shape balloons.

Balloons representing 19 countries filled Albuquerque skies during the nine-day event, including those from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russian Federation, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States. There were 43 states represented in this year’s Balloon Fiesta.

Balloon Fiesta’s estimated attendance was 839,309 visits.  This number is down from 2015’s estimated 955,700 and slightly over Balloon Fiesta’s 5-year average of 817,899.

Over 1,000 members of the media registered to attend and cover the event, from 183 different organizations. Attending media representatives represented seven different countries including China, Japan, Qatar, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the United States.

Most mornings’ flying events went off successfully, except for October 3, when winds kept the balloons from launching.  Weather conditions for evening events were agreeable, except for event cancellations on October 7 and 8. In all, 11 of the scheduled 14 sessions were successful this year. For an event that is so highly dependent on the weather being just right, things went pretty well.

This year marked the fourth annual Music Fiesta, a star-studded country music concert on the final Saturday of the Balloon Fiesta featured Chris Young, Parmalee, and New Mexico’s own rising country star Sim Balkey.

The first prize in the hot air overall competition was awarded to Scott Allsup, of Arizona. Second place winner was Pat Fogue of Missouri and third went to Jerry Copas of Indiana. Scott Allsup took home a new Buick Encore as the overall Balloon Fiesta Champion. That ought to make a pretty economical chase car.

The first place winner of the 2016 Women’s National Championship was Cheri White of Texas. Second place winner was Elisa Trillanes of New Mexico and third place went to Janet Lutkus of Ohio.

The 46th Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, with the theme “Inflate your Imagination” is scheduled to launch October 7-15, 2017.

(Source: International Balloon Fiesta press release; image from file)

FMI: www.balloonfiesta.com