Saturday Fun

Vaughn McMillan

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
36,056
Location
ABQ NM
As I mentioned in the Friday thread, our band played a corporate event Saturday at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. I believe this is the seventh year the band has played for this event. (I'm only been with them for about 4 or 5 of those years.) We were scheduled to play it last year, but Mike, the other guitarist, broke his hand in a motorcycle wreck the week before, so instead we just used my PA system and played recorded music. But this year, everything went great. :thumb: The weather was perfect, the crowd was happy, the free BBQ was tasty, and we had lots of fun. We got to watch 5 or 6 gas balloons take off, got to visit with the Mayor, had front-row seats to a cool Balloon Glow (which wasn't cut short due to wind, as is often the case), and had a superb pyrotechnics show during our last set of music. Here are a few pics from the day...

Here's my view at the beginning of the event. The gas balloons in the distance are at the center of the balloon field, to give an idea how large the city Balloon Park is. These balloons are participating in the America's Challenge Gas Balloon Race. It's a distance race, and weather permitting, these balloons will be up for several days before landing somewhere east of here. Previous winners of this race often travel over 1000 miles. The record is 1998 miles, set in 2011. Flights of 60 hours are not uncommon, with the record at 92+ hours. They generally have a gas balloon race here every year, but they seldom start as originally scheduled, because they are at the mercy of the weather...not only locally but cross-country. Oftentimes, these races are started in the dead of night. In my 30+ years of coming to the Balloon Fiesta, I think this is the second time I've actually seen the gas balloons launch.

Abba%20Event%202017%20-%20My%20View%20800.jpg


Here's an action shot taken by my wife early in the evening...

Abba%20Event%202017%20-%20Daytime%20Jamming%20800.jpg



Here's our view of the Balloon Glow. This just a few of the hundreds of balloons participating...

Abba%20Event%202017%20-%20Balloon%20Glow%202%20800.jpg


Our stage lights are set to randomly fade to different colors every few seconds. Here's shot from my wife where she caught us in a blue phase...

Abba%20Event%202017%20-%20Not%20Playing%20the%20Blues%20800.jpg


And a shot my wife took of some folks chatting to the left of the stage. Interesting only because the tall guy with the beer is the Mayor. He's a guitar player too, and we've met before. We had another good chat about my guitars du jour, and what he's been up to playing-wise. He's a real personable guy, although not real popular these days due to an unwanted rapid transit boondoggle that he pushed through to be his "legacy". (He's a near the end of his second and final term.) Nonetheless, I like him. Real down to earth and genuinely wants to help the city.

Abba%20Event%202017%20-%20Mayor%20at%20the%20Party%20600.jpg


Unfortunately, I was busy playing during the fireworks show so I couldn't take any photos, and all of the shots my wife took came too blurry to use. And nobody got pictures (or video) of the Mayor and his wife dancing to the last few songs we played.

All in all, it was a great time. Unfortunately, it looks like this is the last year that this company will be having their annual party at the Balloon Fiesta. They've moved to a new office near the Balloon Park, so it looks like the party will be at their office instead. I'd say we have a year to get someone else to hire us for their corporate event at the Fiesta next year, lol. :D
 
Balloon fiesta is always colorful and fun. Sorry to miss it this year. It has certainly grown over the years. Old enough to remember the first one which was a hectic mess but still fun. Albuquerque really goes all out for this event.
David
 
Here's a time-lapse video my sister shot Sunday morning. She was working on a chase crew for some friends. She set up her iPhone camera on the dash of the chase van at the beginning of the morning (0-dark:30) and just let it run until they took off on the chase.

https://youtu.be/gqwv7sqS8TY
 
Here's another time lapse from this morning, shot by a local news station. It's on Facebook, but I think it's shared so non-FB members can see it.

https://www.facebook.com/KOAT7/vide...ToqzQji9bWmmmDSw0Qc_ufAetG33h7PO_kbdGxftVZRus

You can see in the video that the balloons are flying in all different directions. The wind is traveling in different directions as the balloons move to different altitudes. That's called a box wind, and Albuquerque is famous for it this time of year. A good pilot can use a box wind to fly around town for an hour, and still end up landing close to where the balloon took off.
 
That looks like a fantastic festival environment. Good to see you having fun.

Having done skydiving and paragliding, I was finally able to get a balloon ride crossed off of my bucket list last April, over Wadi Rum in Jordan.
 
Very cool! I watched the FB video and saw at least 6 penguins, a bee, an armadillo, a frog, a crook, an alligator, a couple of rockets, several cartoon characters, and this wagon....
wagon.jpg

Which makes me wonder how well it does in any turbulence?

Hope you get a gig for next year, looks like a cool festival. :thumb:
 
Very cool. That is a lot of balloons!

Found the gas balloon race very interesting. Had no idea anyone even did that. And then I wondered how much helium they were using, and apparently most of them use hydrogen? So cool.
 
Darren, it's very rare to see the Wells Fargo Bank Stagecoach fly. They typically just inflate it and leave it on the ground. Saturday the weather conditions (and PR value) were ripe for an actual flight. It just went on a short hop...probably landed less than a mile away. The Stagecoach is not easy to maneuver because of the boxy shape and the weight of the envelope. The typical sport balloon envelope weighs about 200 to 350 pounds, depending on the size. The biggest special shape balloons I've worked on weighed 800 to 900 pounds. In contrast, the Stagecoach weighs about 1500 pounds. The extra weight largely comes from all the internal baffles needed to maintain the square shape. And the heavier the balloon, the less responsive it is when you want to make it go up. (They still go down plenty fast though, lol.)

Brent, here's the tracking site for the America's Challenge race:

http://www.balloonfiesta.com/index....c61e9pagenumber=1&mc61e9returnid=461&page=461

And for future reference when that link is no longer working, here's the progress as of about 12:20 AM on Tuesday October 10.

America's%20Challenge%20Gas%20Balloon%20Race%20Tracking%20800.jpg
 
Man those chase teams are going to get run ragged for that one way up in Quebec! I hope they stage the chase teams don't have to actually start in albu-alber-, er, New Mexico.

Wow!
 
Man those chase teams are going to get run ragged for that one way up in Quebec! I hope they stage the chase teams don't have to actually start in albu-alber-, er, New Mexico.

Wow!

That was my thought, too. Here in ABQ, chase teams sometimes have to deal with the "Will they land east or west of the river?" question. For the gas balloon crews, it's more like "Will they land north or south of the Great Lakes?"

And as of right now, it looks like two are in Quebec, with one of those about to enter Newfoundland. Those guys are about to run out of ground to land on. :eek:
 
Top