A Day out at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta

I am currently on a mission to go to a balloon festival. Previously, on a whim, we went to the Sussex Balloon & Action show, which advertised hot air balloons appearing there. As it turned out, the weather wasn’t good enough, and only four hot air balloons were there total, with only three tethering while we were attending, and another staying deflated on the ground. When at this air show, I was told the better hot air balloon festival was the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.

We asked if our children wanted to make the trek up to Bristol, to see some balloons, and they were delighted. It was a very hot day when we set out on the car journey, but we were excited! The Bristol International Balloon Fiesta is a free event, however you can pay for car parking nearby, which is what we did as we did not know the area. This parking is more expensive the closer you want to park; with all of them being a bit of a walk. We got a day ticket and parked up, walking down the path and having lunch.

The Bristol International Balloon Fiesta greeted us with a bunch of food carts, which was a really good start. We brought a packed lunch and were already excited about the options for dinner. This place was massive, with a large fair grounds, an airshow staged area, lots of different booths and so much to explore. Our goal was to stay for the take off at 6PM, though there was a 6AM take off in the morning, there is no way we could have made it there in time for it. The 6AM took off fine, so we assumed that the 6PM would be good to go too or at least that there would be some tethered balloons to take a look at.

So, we settled in, going on fair rides and exploring. The fair rides were a little bit expensive, but fairs tend to be quite expensive anyway. There were some fun houses, slides, spinning cups – everything you’d see at the fair. There was even an entire field of hook a duck, for some reason, with them all right next to each other. Our children really enjoyed the giant swings, which seemed to go really high up and the spinning rides! A few of the rides were cash only, but most used card, which was great.

There were also a lot of free, interactive booths and events going on inside the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta. Lidl had a booth in the middle which had a ninja course, jump into a foam pit, face painting, and a bike riding activity all for free. This bike ride had children getting blenders which had smoothie ingredients in it, plugging it into a bike, then allowing them to ride the bikes until the smoothies are done! These are then portioned out and handed out for everyone to taste. Other fruits were there for the picking and people were handing out hummus, so it felt like a really great booth for us. Amelia was really into biking her smoothie and then having everyone try hers specifically! Kai also found this to be a fun activity and took his super seriously, biking as fast as humanly possible.

Another really lovely area that our girls really enjoyed was the Party Peeps stage. This stage had a lot of music playing, as well as a massive bubble machine. It was basically like a child friendly rave. Robin, Amelia and Kai spent some time at the front of the stage, dancing and singing along while getting utterly covered in foam. After a while, Kai’s teenager-ness kicked in and he wanted to sit back, but you couldn’t peel Robin away from the front if you tried. She was so into it, dancing, singing, shouting, and getting covered in foam. Her and Amelia were there for the full hour it was on, which was amazing to watch, and both said it was their favorite thing at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.

There were amazing air shows at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, including divers leaping from the sky, however, in the evenings; there were no balloons. We stayed until the end of the day, as about half an hour before closing is when they announce if the balloons can fly. At 5:30 PM, we heard that they could not fly due to heat, but they could tether. Excited for tethering, we continued to wait around, but then were told by the manager of the air stage, that all of the balloon pilots had left when they were told they could not fly, so there was no one to tether at all. This was largely disappointing, as we had been excited to see some balloons, but I guess we’ll have to try again next year and come for the 6 AM balloon launch instead.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!