Albuquerque International Balloon FiestaBalloons rise at dawn each October

You can walk among the balloons

Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States — Hot-air balloon festival.

There are no grandstands on the field.

The official site puts it plainly: the launch field is the event itself, and visitors can walk right in among the balloons as they inflate, looking up as the envelopes slowly stand, with the hum of blowers and burners all around. Most festivals keep people behind a fence; here it is the reverse — you stand in the line of the crews, the pilots tying off ropes at your side.

Morning and night are two separate shows; the official schedule runs the event in two sets. Those who come for both get to see the same grass used in two different ways; those who only make the morning still catch the busiest stretch.

It started with thirteen balloons in a car park

In 1972, thirteen hot-air balloons lifted off from the car park of a shopping centre in Albuquerque. The official FAQ puts this sentence at the very start, saying the festival grew from just that. There was no dedicated field then, and none of the later split between morning and evening sessions.

Today the launch site has moved to a balloon park set aside north of the city; the official site records 365 acres, of which 78 acres are the launch field — they suggest imagining more than fifty football pitches laid together. The site is written up as a flat stretch designed specifically for ballooning, an open grass field with nothing blocking the view.

The festival falls in the first full week of October, nine days in all. The official site writes that as the sun touches the Sandia Mountains, the balloons begin to rise; every autumn, pilots, ground crews and spectators from everywhere fill the city.

Special shapes arrived in 1989

The Special Shape Rodeo began in 1989; the official site says it first ran only on Thursday and Friday afternoons, with twenty-eight special-shape balloons, and both days flew. The crowds jammed the roads, and the organisers realised this show had staying power.

Each year it grew: thirty-five in 1990, forty-five in 1991, sixty-two from eight countries in 1992, and 108 by 1996. A third session was added on Thursday morning in 1993; by 1998 all four of Thursday and Friday's morning and evening sessions were given to special shapes, and the night show later became known as Glowdeo.

The roster changes every year; the official site lists each edition's balloons and pilots together, and the gallery lets you browse past years. Other balloon festivals caught the fever and started their own shape events, but Albuquerque's remains the largest.

A morning set and an evening set

The mass ascensions are scheduled for four weekend mornings plus one weekday. Before launch, a dawn patrol probes the day's weather and gives the go-ahead, then balloons from every country leave the ground together. The official site describes it as one whole field lifting at once.

Weekday mornings bring competitions such as precision events, scored on flying accuracy rather than speed; the key grab launches from a mile out and flies back to the field, weaving past the full sky of balloons to grab an envelope hung on a tall pole. Evening slots are for tethered balloons, burners firing almost together so in the dark they look like a long row of flickering bulbs; the tourism page describes Glowdeo as the night gathering of shape balloons, paired with the daytime Rodeo.

Gas-balloon races are a separate track; the tourism page says they have run since 1995, ranked only by distance flown. The program is reshuffled each edition, and both the official site and local tourism pages point to their own schedule pages for the day's plan — check before you leave, it is safer than trusting last year's times.