European Balloon Festival
hot air balloon festival in Spain
The European Balloon Festival is the largest hot air balloon festival in Spain, and one of the largest in Europe. It takes place every year during the first fortnight of July in Igualada, Catalonia, Spain, a city located within 60 km from Barcelona.
The festival lasts four days (Thursday to Sunday) and attracts thousands of spectators. It includes a hot air balloon competition and recreational exhibitions such as a night glow and fireworks. The flights take place early in the morning and late in the afternoon, when weather conditions are the optimal ones. It also offers visitors the opportunity to fly on a balloon, by booking a flight in advance.
The festival is organized by the Igualada City Council, with technical support from the company Ultramagic, the world's second-largest manufacturer of hot air balloons, and Kon-Tiki Balloon Flights, a company specialized in balloon flights. The company merged with Royal Flight Tours in 2010, and operates flights from the south-eastern peninsula.
History
The first festival was held in 1997, and since then has been organized every year. For some years it was held together with the Aerosport airshow, which in 2008 was moved to April or May of every year.
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This entry incorporates text from “European Balloon Festival” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.