Hot air balloons take to Waikato skies for 25th time
Balloons over Waikato take flight for the 25th time this year having grown to be one of the region's premier events.
And these days there’s a waiting list for balloonists to attend the mid March aerial extravaganza
The five-day balloon fiesta attracts thousands of people for the mass ascension at Innes Common every morning to the Zuru nightglow finale - where 30,000 tickets were snapped up in 20 minutes.
Flight director Martyn Stacey has been making the trek to Hamilton since 2000, initially as a pilot.
“I've always had a passion for ballooning as such and I got the situation where I was in Auckland and I had some friends who had a balloon, so I went for a balloon ride and then a couple of years later, around 1998 I was in a position where I could buy a balloon.”
Stacey said he’s seen Balloons over Waikato grow exponentially and with balloonists all around the world putting it in their top three event. Balloons over Waikato is so popular there’s a waiting list to get their balloon “We have a thing where we try not to have the same shapes all the time. So people are going around the world saying, ”hey, can I borrow your shape because I want to take it to Waikato and other guys say, Well, no, I'm going to go“.
Stacey is now land-bound for the Waikato event due to his job as fight director, which is focused on making sure everyone remains safe.
He has to take into consideration the pilot's abilities before he lets them go up.
“Some people say they've been around for years. But if you've only been flying in your backyard, you haven't really been learning.”
With shaped balloons, which this year include a polar bear and flying pig, a minimum wind standard is set so pilots know they can safely take off and land as they take up more space.
“You've got to make sure that downwind, they've got some big fields they can land in and if things turn to custard, you've got to have alternatives. We used to have a marquee on the [Hamilton] lake there as we got bigger and bigger we ended up going all the way around the lake.
Balloons over Waikato runs from March 19 to 23.