It takes two to tango but at least four people are needed to get a hot air balloon in flight. And it takes a village to make Lincoln’s Balloons Over 66 happen.
The landmark late summer festival in the Logan County city 30 miles south of Bloomington-Normal includes this weekend’s art fair, barbeque contest, doggie diving competition and a street fair in the downtown square. It's also paired with the annual Railsplitting Festival, running Saturday and Sunday in Downtown Lincoln.
Balloons Over 66 features a balloon “glow” Friday and Saturday evening, with 19 hot air balloons set up for viewing. Weather permitting, the festival also includes balloon launches twice on Saturday.
Pilot Austin Hopp is the event's balloon meister [a real title], responsible for coordinating with the Federal Aviation Administration, which issued a waver allowing lower flight altitudes over the City of Lincoln, and overseeing pilot safety and weather conditions. Conveniently, the field where balloons land is a few hundred yards from the Lincoln branch of the National Weather Service. Everything from crop height to wind turbines, to livestock and air temperature are considerations for pilots.
“[Balloons Over 66] is where I got my start in ballooning,” said Hopp. “My grandpa sponsored a balloon when I was like 5 years old. That’s what got me started and why I’m a pilot today.”
Propane tanks emit fiery gas into the balloon to keep it “inflated” to lift the basket, a contraption that, like typical baskets, is often made of wicker. Lifting a balloon is about changing the density within the parachute-like envelope [the technical term for the balloon part, often made of fireproofed rip-stop nylon]. Hot air balloons are primarily manufactured in one of two locations: the United Kingdom and Galena, Ill.
“We just use standard propane like your gas grill,” Hopp said. “The only difference is we draw the liquid off the bottom and there’s a whole system that works up there to give us over 18 million BTU.”
That’s a lot of BTUs.
“Let’s just say you cannot cook a hotdog, but you can ‘disappear’ a hot dog,” Hopp said.
Getting the balloons back
Now, it's just all down to the forecast, although Balloons Over 66 nearly abandoned its eponymous balloons.
City officials, balloon operators and Lincoln residents were all taken by surprise when the organizer of the festival’s signature flights since 2019 said he couldn't do it anymore.
“We all just kind of found out together,” said Lincoln Mayor Tracy Welch.
A large-dollar donor stepped up and within a matter of days, Welch said, a group of balloon pilots and enthusiasts came together to form a nonprofit organization and get the balloons back at Balloons Over 66.
“I think it shed a lot of light on how important that event is to our community,” he said.
Welch owns his own hot air balloon and is training to become a pilot. The hobby, he said, is part of Lincoln's identity, with Balloons Over 66 functioning as the city's biggest event of the year.
“Balloons are very important to this community,” he said. “There’s a lot of local pilots. It’s important to our businesses. They see more revenue in that weekend than some of them will see in an entire month.”
Balloons Over 66 began in the 1980s and ran consecutively until 2016. The community reorganized after the chamber of commerce shut down, which had been running the event. Former organizer Seth Goodman relaunched the festival the next year and shouldered it almost entirely alone for the last 7 years, until his Facebook announcement about giving it up.
Welch said it was particularly critical to ensure balloons happened this year. Lincoln is one of a handful of communities in Logan County along Route 66, which are seeing increased tourism during the Mother Road's centennial.
“It is important to this community,” Hopp said. “It brings a lot of tourism in as well, so that benefits us. It’s been a longstanding history of this community.”
Balloons Over 66 is Friday and Saturday, running side-by-side with the Railsplitters Festival through Sunday in Lincoln. For details, visit balloonsover66.com.
