New Jersey hot air balloon festival canceled for 2024

READINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. (PIX11) – The New Jersey Lottery Festival of Ballooning has been canceled for 2024, event organizers announced Friday.

The Festival Group, which organizes the annual balloon festival, is putting it on a one-year hiatus in order to “reimagine, refresh and relaunch the next version” of the event in 2025.

Howard Freeman, the longtime executive producer of the balloon festival, explained that the hiatus is due to financial reasons.

“Since we purchased the event back in late fall of 1992, we have been proud to offer a first-class, family-oriented festival at reasonable prices. However, coming out of the 2020 pandemic, we have seen an exponential increase in operational costs. Inflation, supply chain interruptions, vendors who went out of business during the pandemic, competition for scarce resources from festivals worldwide, along with drastically increased fees set by musical talent, make it extremely difficult to present a quality event in its current form without passing rising costs onto our guests. In order to properly address these challenges, we have made the difficult decision to take a one-year hiatus to reimagine and relaunch the festival in 2025.”

Freeman said the event's organizers are seeking additional investors and partners to be part of the festival's relaunch in 2025.

The New Jersey Lottery Festival of Ballooning was held at Solberg Airport in Readington Township in Hunterdon County this past July. The three-day event celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. 

In addition to the hot air balloons, the festival featured concerts, drone light shows, food vendors and other family entertainment.

Fitz and the Tantrums, KC and the Sunshine Band, Lit, Everclear and Laurie Berkner were the headlining musical acts at this past festival.