Balloon Fest lives up to expectations despite storm

 PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Despite inclement weather — and having to cancel all of Sunday’s scheduled activities because of Tropical Storm Irene — officials with the Crown of Maine Balloon Fest are happy with this year’s event.
“I think we can put this in a ‘very successful’ category,’” said Calvin Hall, Balloon Fest chair. “The weather actually played less of a role than we thought. We were able to get four out of six launches off … the Friday and Saturday ones; Thursday evening and Sunday morning were the only two times we were not able to fly balloons.
“Generally speaking, that was a good number of flights for us,” he said. “We’re very happy with the way things went.”
This year’s festival featured 12 hot air balloons including two new pilots.
“In our last pilot briefing, all of the pilots spoke very highly of the area. They like the size of the festival, they love the flying area, the panoramic views that we have here, the ability to land pretty much anywhere which takes a lot of the stress off the flying, and all of them said they want to be invited back next year,” said Hall, “and we look forward to having them all back.”
Sunday’s Taco Bell Music Festival featuring local artists had to be scrapped because of wind and heavy rain.
“The events on Sunday this year were added events. We had not had events after the flight in previous years; this was something new to continue the festival on,” said Hall. “It was disappointing that we couldn’t have those events, but we are certainly going to try to have that up and running again for next year.”
The Balloon Fest Committee wanted this year’s event to have more of a “festival feel.” Vendors, crafters, food, music and entertainment were added to the lineup.
“By having the vendors, crafters and food there, the crowd stayed after the balloon launches Friday and Saturday night,” said Hall. “For those that didn’t want to chase the balloons, they enjoyed the activities and visited. It was a good social time and we held them there until the balloons returned and did their glows those nights. We also had a good crowd at the fairgrounds Saturday with lots of activities for children, so it was all very successful.
“The committee is going to be meeting next week with parties that were involved all weekend as part of our debriefing. At that meeting we’ll talk about what went well and what could use improvement,” he said. “I would guess that we’re going to try to expand on what we did this year. We’ve asked the pilots for some suggestions because they travel to all kinds of festivals and they’re going to be sending us suggestions as to how we can make it better. We want to keep the festival at the fairgrounds and we’re going to try to expand on the vendors and entertainment.”
Hall wishes to thank the volunteers and sponsors who made this year’s festival a success.
“From Thursday to Sunday, we had well over a couple thousand people that came to various parts of the event, and we had well over 300 volunteers that helped put it together. We couldn’t have done it without them,” he said, noting that he saw license plates in town from all the New England states, a few Canadian provinces and some from “farther away than that.”
“Aside from having a lot of fun and providing something that a lot of people never get to see — balloons flying over their hometown — the festival does provide an economic impact for the businesses in central Aroostook County,” said Hall. “It was a great time and we encourage people to make plans to attend next year’s festival.”
The ninth annual Crown of Maine Balloon Fest is scheduled for Aug. 23-26, 2012.