Last year's Winnemucca Balloon Festival featured a beautiful display of brightly lit balloons during the Humboldt Ford Glow Show.
May is prime time for flying hot air balloons and the 11th Annual Winnemucca Balloon Festival (WBF) will take place May 19 through 21. Thirteen pilots will be flying this year in balloons of all different colors, shapes and sizes.
“I think this is something really awesome for the community,” explained Winnemucca Balloon Festival Founder Jeremy Crosby.
The Humboldt Ford Glow Show, held at the Ralph Whitworth Recreation Complex, will light up the night sky on May 19 to kick off the weekend and have extended hours this year, beginning around 7:30 p.m. when the sun sets and ending around 9 p.m. The event will also have a community fair with multiple local craft and merchandise vendors and extra food truck vendors so folks are not waiting in long lines for food.
“That's our way of giving back to the community and allowing [vendors] to get out and sell their merchandise and show themselves,” said Crosby.
As always, the event is free to all but there will be a collection of non-perishable food items for the Winnemucca Food Bank in lieu of admission.
According to Crosby, last year’s festival collected approximately 1,200 pounds of food.
“We like to give back to the community and this is how we are able to.”
There will only be four or five repeat balloons this year, according to Crosby, and the rest will be brand new, including a “beach ball” balloon, flown by Lorne Whittles, and a “strawberry” balloon, flown by John Leisek.
Western States Propane has graciously donated all of the propane for the balloons, which is an absolute necessity in order to get the balloons in the air.
Crosby said that Western States donated 444 gallons of propane for a previous festival, which is enough propane for around 14 one-hour flights.
Crosby and other Balloon Festival Board Members visit the local schools, as well as some of the rural schools in order to teach students about the balloons and the weather that is necessary in order to fly.
Because the event is so dependent on the weather, Crosby explained that it is nerve racking waiting to see how the weather will be during the weekend.
“This takes a whole year to plan, it’s not thrown together in a couple of weekends,” explained Crosby.
WBF has quite a few new board members this year, like Roxanna Rowberry, Ginny Heard, Craig Reynolds, Harmony Brown, Michael Brown, who have done a fantastic job coordinating and designing this year’s event, according to Crosby.
As always, the WBF will be holding their photo contest, in which each person can submit up to 10 photos in order to win first, second, or third place and a gift card to a local restaurant. Drone photos are not allowed, as they may interfere with the balloons.
“The committee gets together and narrows down their choices—it's the committee's choice of who the winners are,” said Crosby.
The WBF is also still looking for volunteers to work on the crews that help prepare the balloons for flight, chase them, or guess where they are going to land, and pack them up, with kids and adults welcome. The set up for launch time will begin at 5:30 a.m. on May 20 and 21 and people can volunteer by visiting the WBF booth at the Humboldt Ford Glow Show on May 19.
“We need 35 to 40 people that go out there and crew,” explained Crosby.