Ohio Challenge festival rebounds in Middletown with healthier attendance, positive feedback

The extreme heat kept attendance to an estimated 30,000 people who attended the 2019 Ohio Challenge hot air balloon festival last weekend in Middletown.

David Pearce, event treasurer and organizer, said the event “rebounded” from last year’s washout and 2019 changes were embraced by the attendees.

“It was very successful in spite of the heat,” Pearce said. “Friday’s attendance was very good but we felt the impact (from the extreme heat) on Saturday’s attendance.”

He said the event usually gets a 50 percent bump in attendance on Saturday over Friday’s attendance.

“Both days were very solid,” he said. “The vendors were very happy as this is a big event for them. Social media gave us very good feedback about the event.”

Pearce said the feedback included praise for the fireworks show on Friday and Saturday nights.

“We changed fireworks vendors and they knocked the cover off the ball,” he said.

Entering the 17th year, the event organizers had to overcome several challenges in the past year. Those challenges included attendance of between 1,000 and 2,000 last year, a 90 percent drop from the previous year due to heavy rains, resolving a sponsorship issue after Selection.com withdrew as presenting sponsor; and airport parking issues because of new rules.

Pearce said many comments he received were about how much everyone loved the balloon glow on Saturday with 22 hot-air balloons participating. He said “that was the largest glow ever on a Saturday night.”

Some attendees were disappointed that the hot air balloons could not launch on either night due to 13 mph winds that prevented safe launches, he said.

However, Pearce said the event received a lot of positive feedback for having the balloons inflate and taking down the caution tape so that crowd “could get up close and personal” with the pilots and the balloons.

“We wanted to get better engagement between the pilots and their balloons with the people,” he said. “People loved that and really enjoyed it.”

Pearce said there was one off-site launch near Trenton on Saturday morning with balloons flying into Smith Park.

Shelby Quinlivan, city spokeswoman, said there was one EMS run on Saturday due to heat complications and there were no police arrests or interventions.

Pearce said the splash pad got heavy use over the weekend as people were able to cool off from the sweltering heat.

Last year, city airport officials complained about some ruts created by cars that parked on the soaked airport grounds. Quinlivan said a parking plan for the event included closing a portion of one of a taxiways with buses shuttling people between the parking area and Smith Park. She said the city is unaware of any issues from last weekend.

“Parking for future events at the airport will depend upon the anticipated development of the airport and we will work with event planners to identify parking possibilities for next year,” she said.

Pearce said he was unaware of any issues resulting from parking 1,700 cars at the airport and said “it’s so critical we park there.

“I feel like this has been the best executed event in a long time and our guests had a really good time,” Pearce said. “We rebounded from last year and we’re looking forward to hosting next year’s event.”

He said about 250 volunteers helped to make the event successful and that city officials were great to work with in putting on this year’s event. The dates for the 2020 Ohio Challenge will be announced later.

About the Author