Sam Park, executive director of the Balloon Fiesta, said “the entire world showed up” for the 50th anniversary of the International Balloon Fiesta held last month in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Though eight of the 14 sessions were canceled due to bad weather, the event was a huge success, officials said, after releasing this year’s facts and figures.
"We had 828,000 people attend Balloon Fiesta over the nine days," Parks told KOAT. "We had 648 balloons, and that's actually the most balloons we've had at Balloon Fiesta since the year 2000 when we had 1,000 balloons. So, this was a huge increase, over 100 extra balloons this year."
This was the first event since the pandemic without COVID restrictions.
“Back in 2020, we didn't have a balloon fiesta at all,” Parks said. “In the last year, the 2021 balloon to our 49th, we didn't have any of our international guests allowed to travel. So, it was kind of a smaller group. This year, the entire world showed up here at Albuquerque."
The event featured 120 special balloon shapes, 20 different countries were represented, and more than 1 million people tuned in around the world for the special nine-day event, according to KOAT.
Weather safety became an issue after a severe rainstorm caused fear of lightning. The aftermath caused thousands of people to shelter in place for two nights. Others were also asked to evacuate.
"We had this microburst of weather that happened literally right on top of Balloon Fiesta Park," Parks said.
Parks said safety plans that were in place long before the Fiesta were implemented when the bad weather struck.
"We have a public safety team that meets literally six months out," Parks said. "Those types of scenarios, including weather, are actually practiced on what we call tabletop discussions. When something like that does happen, our public safety entities are already prepared for it. So, those preparations were put in place, and that's the reason why the shelter-in-place was really put into action at that time."
Prizes were also gifted to winners during the fourth annual 'X Marks the Spot' conference — a program that helps pilots find spots in town to land safely during Balloon Fiesta, KOAT reported. Next year's Balloon Fiesta is scheduled for Oct. 7-15.