Thursday, September 22, marked 41 years the city of Plano has held the Plano Balloon Festival, and it continues to bring joy and excitement to people from around the DFW Metroplex.
Richard Branson was once quoted as saying, “Half the art of ballooning is to make your crashes so gentle that you can fool yourself into calling them landings.”
There were no crash landings Saturday, but there were plenty of people and smiles to go around.
“It’s incredible. They have all this cool stuff out here, there’s lots of food, lots of happy people, it’s good to be here,” said Deanne, a participant in the 5k run/walk event speaking with The Dallas Express.
When asked if she would consider coming back next year, she said, “absolutely!”
Thursday kicked off the 41st annual Plano Balloon Festival and ran presented by H-E-B/Central Market Place and concludes Sunday, September 25.
The weekend event offers something for everyone, from entertainment on the Main Stage to kid’s activities, skydivers, and an enormous variety of food, like funnel cake, to tempt your taste buds.
There are also plenty of souvenirs, handmade products, and of course, the incredible hot air balloons.
The history of how hot air ballooning became popular in the city dates back to 1980, according to festival officials.
“The balloon festival started in 1980 with a group of pilots that were local to Plano that flew very often,” said Jo Via, Executive Director of the Plano Balloon Festival.
“And so that group flew all the time and decided they wanted to pull together a festival, and so with the chamber of commerce help, they pulled together the first balloon festival in October of 1980,” Via added.
For the past two years, the festival has been put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, with the pandemic slowing down, more and more people have begun to attend outdoor events such as the balloon festival, which offers many quality events for people of all age groups and families.
“Our goal is to produce a family-friendly event,” said Via.
“It’s not about the size. It’s about the quality of the event,” she added.
Why in hell don’t you run these stories before the event so we can go to it? What good is story that is after the fact or so late that we can’t change out plans?