Photo courtesy of Alida ThorpeMy husband and I went early this morning, sunrise actually, to the
Metro NY Balloon & Music Festival,
being held August 10th, 11th & 12th at Brookhaven Calabro Airport.
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Unfortunately, a north wind kept the balloons from flying.
As one balloon owner said, "...in this wind, nowhere to go but the ocean!"
It was wonderful to watch the balloons fire up and get ready.
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For more information, directions and the festival information, visit the website..here.
I will tell you that it costs $10 to park and $25 per person to enter, so it is not an inexpensive family activity.
No coolers are allowed but you can bring in a folding chair.
Hope you enjoy your Long Island weekend!
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6 comments:
The New York Metro Balloon Festival is the biggest rip off of the Summer 2007.
$10 to Park your car, $25 per adult to enter, $15 per kid, $4 for a soda, $7 for a 2 chicken fingers and fries and the list goes on...
We tried standing in line (kids and all) 45 minutes before 4 shows at the circus and still didnt get in as the venue couldnt seat more than 280 people. The day time heat reached near 90 degrees yet there was no shady area anywhere on the grounds to eat, drink or just take a break.
If you could stand the heat, the only saving grace was the Monster truck show, the Maximum Velocity show and the cars/planes on display..
The people working there, including the cops, the EMT and festival staff were helpful and friendly and kept up their spirits up right through the day but somebody made a lot of money for a badly organized show...we ended up spending $140 in 4 hours...more than we spent for two fantastic days at Dutch Wonderland in PA.
And by-the-way, if you wanted to see any hot air balloons, forget it, they took off at 8.00 a.m and were nowhere in sight...if you wanted to land up with a sun stroke, you could wait until 5.00 p.m. to see them again. Try telling the kids that after waiting in the sun for five hours. So NO Balloons at the Balloon festival either.
Shame on Remax and the sponsors for such a RIP OFF.
Ditto, except we spent $200 after having FREE tickets to get in!!! $25 each ride bracelet for 3 kids, sodas every hour at $4 a pop because it was sweltering heat, $6 shakes at Mr. Softy after 45 minute wait, 3 circus shows of waiting on line without ever getting in, Stuck it out until evening because we refused to leave without seeing balloons and then it redeemed itself, a breeze set in, balloons blew up and sent off into the sky with Pat Benetar in the background, actually a nice night after a hot aggrevating day!. I'd be twice as pissed if I had to pay for the 4 of us to get in!!!
Go figure we had a great time. Pat Benatar was great! Fireworks were amazaing!
2008 I was a vendor who pay $300 for a 10 x 10 space. The person that was put in charge of the concessions, had no idea what he was doing. We were set up on the grass section, the rows were on even, I would tell one lie after another. Telling all of us there would be 150,000 we were lucky to see 2000 that's not much wonders a hundred vendors. After the people pay the entrance fee in charge ridiculous amounts to eat and drink, they didn't have enough money to buy from us vendors. The people of may the money where the promoters? If the person in charge of vending runs a towing service. But he'll tell you what a professional he is, on anything else you're willing to listen to accept for the truth. Every vendor I spoke to said it was the last time they were coming back to this venue. ReMax your balloon was out of air on this one. You should be ashamed of yourselves because this is the second year in a row you have see people, but then again thats business. If you can't sell houses? Ripoff of people. Well what do they say about car salesman realtors and lawyers???? Signed not happy.
i was at the Metro NY Balloon & Music Festival! it was incredible, this is a great post.
brilliant picture.
Cheers,
Blair
We went in 2008 and LOVED it. We received discounts from Newsday so I don't think we paid full price to enter. The balloons were all on the ground at the time we got there which was really cool just to see them. I brought frozen drinks and left them in the car, we were able to each carry a drink in so half way through the day we hit the car for more drinks. The monster trucks and BMX bikes the kids loved. The dog show was cute. The car and RV and boat shows were nice. The food was alot of money but so are carnival food. We received so much free stuff from a great deal of the vendors ( string backpack, cell phone holders, soft side drink cooler, umbrella, and more). I can't wait for you guys to comes back. Hopeful for 2011.
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