Our festival takes place at the Northern Maine Fairgrounds in Presque Isle, Maine.

We request that all animals stay home during our event. Our festival is often heavily attended with minimal places for our four legged friends to rest/relax. Additionally, many animals are startled or afraid of hot air balloons and the sounds they make. Service animals are permitted. Any attendee with an animal not on a leash will be asked to leave.

Since our inception, the Crown of Maine Balloon Fest has been free to attend and park.

We are always looking for volunteers to help with our event by helping host our free children’s activities, helping with our info tent, or acting as crew for one of our pilots. You can learn more about being a volunteer crew person here

We are thrilled to announce that we have DOUBLED our capacity for craft and direct sales vendors. Our application will be available to our returning vendors on March 1st and will be fully available to all interested vendors March 15. Spots are first paid, first serve.

Untethered, or free flights, go on sale about one month before the event. Hot air balloon flights are $250 per person and are reserved with a 50% deposit here: www.combf.org/flightreservation

We offer tethered rides Friday and Saturday evenings on the launch field. Tethered ride bracelets are first come, first served to the first 100 passengers, and go on sale at 6pm. In order to ensure a fair process, all passengers must be present during lineup and the location of the bracelet sales will be announced about 30 minutes prior. You can learn more about our tethered rides here

Well, it depends! Each of our hot air balloons has specific parameters including weight, number of occupants, and age. Our flight coordinators do their best to accommodate requests based on the flight reservation application. Generally speaking, our balloons are able to take between 1 and 4 passengers, with weight limits between 200 and 750 pounds.

Hot air balloons require a lot of fuel, significant manpower and incredibly low winds in order to remain upright, so you are not going to see them set up on the field, unless they are preparing for launch (typically around 6am and 6pm, weather dependent). Don't worry, we have lots of other activities going on! Check our our schedule of events here

While I festival is run by a team of volunteers, decisions about flights fall to our balloon meister and our individual pilots who have the expertise to make the safest decision for our pilots, passengers, and crew. While we do our best to honor as many flights as possible, the safety of all participants is paramount.

Hot air balloons are very weather and wind dependent, so launch times are often not exact and are up to pilot discretion. Sometimes this means our balloons will leave the primary launch field to set up somewhere else nearby that has a safer wind direction.

We do our best to keep our attendees and community updated, but we often don't have flight confirmations until balloons begin to set up. To keep our crew, pilots, and passengers safe, and to respect our local landowners we do not announce the location of any off site flights. Driving on private property without express landowner consent is prohibited.

Hot air ballooning is entirely weather dependent, and there can be many different reasons why the wind impacts our ability to launch:

1. The ground wind is too fast. Typically, the top speed pilots will fly in is 6 to 8 mph, so while it might not feel that windy to you, it might still be dangerous for balloons.

2. Higher Altitude winds are too fast. Even if the wind is calm on the ground, wind speed above ground could be vastly different. Pilots will use a pi-ball, or a small helium party balloon, to get a visual representation of what the wind is doing above the ground.

3. There is no wind at all. Seeing a theme here? While balloons can't fly in too high of wind speed, they do rely on wind to move. If the wind speed is too low, balloons could get stranded over woods, planted farm fields, a pond, high tension lines, or a building.

4. Wind is traveling in an unsafe direction. Since balloons travel with the wind, pilots have to be sure that not only is the wind traveling at a safe speed but that it is also going in a safe direction with multiple safe landing options. Sometimes, pilots will move off site to find a take-off location that will bring them to a better landing place.

No! All balloon related decisions are made immediately prior to the scheduled time. If a morning flight is cancelled, all evening activities continue as scheduled. If an evening launch is cancelled due to high wind, tethered rides and balloon glow could still take place if the wind settles in time.