by Kim Vesely
Think it's a simple question? Just try answering it! "Well . . . it's bigger . . ."
Of course there's more to it than that if only you could find the words. But if David Letterman can boil the state of the universe down to a Top Ten list, why can't we? So, from the home office, as David would say . . .
10. It's bigger.
OK, OK, this is stating the obvious. More balloons mean more launch sites, more crew, more traffic, more parking places, more launch directors and propane people, more pilot packs, more stuff that has to be donated by sponsors who supply freebies (and fewer freebies when some sponsors just can't cope). Bigger crowds mean more traffic cops, porta-potties, lost children. Just to control it all means more regimentation and, to a large degree, the loss of that personal touch there simply isn't time for it.
When it comes right down to it, the event's astonishing growth and sheer size impact every other aspect of the event. Sometime midway through the third hike across the one-mile-long new field, it hit me: It's the size, stupid.
9. It's big business.
It ain't the Kodak Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta for nothing. Kodak paid good money for the privilege. The Fiesta is now well past the stage when sponsorship meant some banners on balloons and a few concession tents hawking breakfast burritos. Today's Fiesta field houses corporate suites used by sponsors to lavishly entertain clients. Eager concessionaires pay handsomely for the chance to profit as thousands of spectators turn shoppers. Official products, licensed shirts, events with big sponsor names . . . the list goes on. The folks that foot the bill expect to get entertainment value and brisk sales for their big bucks.
So why the big push for corporate dollars? An event this big is not cheap to run. The mounting commercialism is a direct result of the enormous cost associated with erecting a temporary city capable of supporting a quarter-million people and providing it with the requisite services, from sanitation to first aid. Once again, it's the size, stupid.
8. It's more diverse.
When the Fiesta began, the sight of a few dozen balloons awed people and seemed like more than enough for one event. But before very long, the search began for late morning, afternoon, and evening events. Money was part of it, of course additional events increased the marketability of the Fiesta to concessionaires and sponsors. And the infrastructure was already in place, so why not do more with it than launch balloons in the morning?
Over the years, the Fiesta has hosted an amazing variety of events: dance recitals, equestrian demonstrations, air shows, concerts, model aircraft, chicken-flying contests, old-timers demonstrations . . . But the events that endure are the ones that feature, in some form or another, the main attraction: balloons. In addition to the nine morning flights the Fiesta now includes Dawn Patrol shows in the very early mornings, plus two conventional balloon glows, a special shapes glow, an afternoon special shapes flight, and the America's Challenge Gas Balloon Race.
Do you get tired just thinking about it? Me, too.
7. It's more impersonal.
Back in the 1980's and before, registration day at the Holiday Inn Midtown was the greatest ballooning reunion anywhere. The sport was still small enough that everybody knew everybody (or at least it seemed like it). Everybody was there, in one convenient location, for registration and the opening-day party. And if you missed someone at the Holiday Inn, not to worry you'd catch up with her on the field, or at the Zoo Party, or someplace . . .
The Fiesta is still, arguably, the ballooning crossroads of the world, but it's getting harder to find that personal touch or people, period. Fiesta has long since outgrown the Holiday Inn's facilities and those of all the other hotels. Registration is held on the field; with more than a thousand pilots dropping by throughout the day, trying to find somebody requires planning or luck. Think you'll find your friends on the field? It can be difficult even if you know their launch site. By the time you trek across the field, they may be long gone. The Zoo Party survives and it's still fun good food and cool critters. And it's still the party the old-timers attend, even the ones who no longer fly in the Fiesta. But with six thousand-plus people there, it's, well, a zoo!
6. It's a different world now.
Remember the 70's? Want to remember the 70's? Can you remember the 70's?
Times have changed. A lot. Twenty-five years ago, ballooning was a small and still largely unregulated sport. People were still finding out you don't fly in thermals and hit powerlines by doing it, coming back, and telling the rest of us not to bother. Many of the early balloonists were rugged individualists living in a more permissive age when nobody had ever heard of MADD or AIDS. Nobody cared who was riding in the back of the pickup truck or where on the launch site you did your drinking. Whether you regard it as a good thing or a bad thing, there's no doubt the social and legal climate has changed radically in the ensuing years.
5. Barcoding has a whole new meaning.
Remember when barcoding met rating drink prices and cocktail servers? Remember when you were younger and could hit the party circuit every night? Toga! Toga! Toga!
Don't get me wrong you can still find a party every night in Albuquerque.
There's even a big tent right on the Fiesta field, in keeping with the current get-people-to-the-launch-site-every-chance-you-get philosophy. But the party scene is much tamer than it used to be, for several reasons:
A lot of formerly idle time has been taken over by ballooning events like special shapes and balloon glows.
With the current social and legal climate, some sponsors shy away from throwing parties especially the crazy parties of the old days!
The Fiesta has gotten so big that Albuquerque has run out of places large enough to host everybody not to mention the money and logistics.
And, as we get older, most of us don't can't party as hearty as we used to. Do you still whoop it up the way you did twenty years ago? Me neither.
4. We're older.
The hugs and greetings are still warm and heartfelt. It's still great to see old friends. But increasingly they're old friends. I mean, twenty-five years is a lot of living in anybody's life.
So as you catch up on lives and doings, you find yourself noticing things like paunches . . . wrinkles . . . grey hair . . . extra pounds or lack thereof. Then the conversation begins and those conversations, more and more frequently, have to do with stuff like last year's heart attack, stroke, or chemotherapy. These conversations have a certain poignancy to them, and make you long for the days when health-related conversations were mostly about "nasty hangovers I have known" and the bruises from last week's high wind landing.
3. We're having kids and grandkids!
At the other end of the spectrum, there's a ballooning baby boom! These days, it seems like everybody has kids (or grandkids!) in tow. Makes for quite a changed scene at the Zoo Party. Funny thing it seems having all these children around is making us rowdy grownups grow up.
It's not just my contemporaries who are toting strollers across the field. All those kids who were balloonists' kids 20 years ago are suddenly grown up, flying, married, and in some cases pushing prams themselves. Scary.
2. We're writing obituaries.
The saddest change more and more every year is the growing number of missing faces. This year is especially tough. We've lost a number of Fiesta veterans, including two of the original 1972 pilots, Don Kersten and Bill Murtorff. Bill, especially, has been a fixture at the Fiesta for as long as I can remember. We'll miss him.
And (on a lighter note) . . . the number one way the Fiesta has changed . . .
The old timers sit around talking about how much Fiesta has changed!