The BBM&L had a successful Midlands Air Festival event. Sadly, the weather was windy, which restricted the flying slots to Friday evening, for the more experienced pilots, and Saturday morning when more than 100 balloons took off. What a gorgeous spectacle for the unusually large crowd for a morning launch, their early start paid off.
Towards the end of the Saturday morning launch Jonathan Harris very kindly inflated G-ODAY for us for about an hour, banner facing the crowd, thank you Jonathan, great publicity.
The BBM&L stall had a steady flow of visitors throughout the event. Many had not heard of us before but were keen to learn more. Our focus for this year’s event was the online museum and the grant received from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to support us in creating it. We had screen shots of the Home Page, How a Hot Air Balloon Works and David Barker’s Autopilot, each with a QR code which many photographed so they could look us up later when they had a phone signal – the number of festival visitors always results in a limited phone signal on site. The autopilot was a great talking point to illustrate there is more to ballooning than many realise.
The visitors were a delicious mix from the young to the more mature and included one girl who chose balloons for her Rainbows project. We were able to provide her with lots of information and our Children’s Ballooning Pack which has an illustration of the workings of a hot air balloon and a sample of balloon fabric. Another young visitor, a future engineer, was fascinated by airships and boats, we were able to provide a guide to airships for him.
There is a lovely family atmosphere at the festival and we talked to lots of people, including regular visitors to the stall over the years, which is fantastic, and their support is greatly appreciated.
