Since 1983, the New Jersey Lottery Festival of Ballooning has filled the skies around Solberg Airport in Readington, N.J. with special shapes and sport hot air balloons for one vertigo-inducing weekend. This year, though, it’s been called off.
The Festival Group, balloon fest’s organizer since 1992, cited a post-pandemic explosion of high operational costs and supply chain interruptions as the reasons. After what they said was “many months of difficult soul searching,” organizers couldn’t compete with “drastically increased fees set by musical talent” and the overall limited resources across the market. The Festival Group hopes to launch a reimagined NJLFoB in 2025.
Rated the #1 Thing to Do in New Jersey by NJ Monthly, the fest typically treats nearly 150,000 attendees to magic shows, carnival games and, of course, a chance to catch a ride in one of those creaky wicker baskets set to launch into the heavens. In past years, you could also catch performances from KC and the Sunshine Band or Smokey Robinson, or drag your kids away from their Minecrafting with the promise of appearances from Disney royalty like the Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato and Ross Lynch.