Interest soars as balloon festival seeks site
Courting of the suddenly homeless Baton Rouge Balloon Festival was proceeding this week as the nonprofit foundation board overseeing the event hopes to meet next week to discuss the festival’s future.
On Tuesday night in Donaldsonville, the Ascension Parish Council backed a resolution without opposition in support of bringing the festival to the parish-owned Lamar-Dixon Expo Center near Gonzales.
Louisiana Ballooning Foundation officials plan to meet Friday with Zachary and city Chamber of Commerce officials to discuss holding the festival on open land in the northern East Baton Rouge Parish community, Zachary and festival officials confirmed.
George Richard, executive director of the ballooning foundation, said he also has received interest from an individual in Lafayette, a group that wants to bring the festival to downtown Baton Rouge, as well as prior inquiries out of Livingston Parish.
“There are a lot of people interested in it,” Richard said Wednesday.
The festival had been held for nine years on fields at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge along Kenilworth Parkway.
But center officials informed festival organizers in November that they would not provide space for the festival in 2012 due to safety and logistical concerns.
Richard said there does not seem to be a suitable location in Baton Rouge.
“A lot of citizens are trying to find a place. There’s just no real suitable place in Baton Rouge that you can just handle a big crowd,” he said.
“We developed a successful event. I don’t where we’re going from here.”
Linda Wunstel, chairwoman of the foundation board, said the group expects to meet next week, although no date has yet been set.
Wunstel, who is marketing director for The Advocate, confirmed the planned visit to Zachary but declined further comment Wednesday. The Advocate has been a major sponsor of the festival since its inception.
Zachary Mayor David Amrhein said community leaders want to listen to Balloon Festival officials and see if the town has a site that fits their needs.
He said a 400-acre tract of wide-open private land is possibly available, as well as space for parking. He described the upcoming meeting as preliminary.
“We’re going to give it our best shot. We’ll just see where it falls,” Amrhein said.
He said the festival would be great for Zachary.
“This is the type of event you want. It’s a clean event, a prestigious event. It kind of gets us on the map,” Amrhein said.
Ascension Parish government officials and businessman Brad Walker said they see similar benefits in basing the festival at Lamar-Dixon and began overtures in late 2010.
Ascension Parish President Tommy Martinez said Wednesday he would like to sit down and talk with festival officials to see what the parish can do. He said he was hopeful of getting the event.
“I think we got a good shot,” he said.
Walker, the Ascension businessman who has played a key role in courting the festival, told the Parish Council on Tuesday that he set up a Facebook page to show the parish’s support.
Walker encouraged people Tuesday night to “like” the Facebook page called “Bring Hot Air Balloons to Ascension.” As of early Wednesday evening, the site had been liked by 327 people.
The site is at http://www.facebook.com/#!/AscensionHotAirBalloons.