Moffat County Hot Air Balloon Festival

Propane at first light

The work on the field at Loudy-Simpson Park, south of Craig, starts around 5:30 in the morning. Pilots and their crews lay out the envelopes on the grass and begin inflating them for a launch set for 6:30, weather safely permitting. The festival’s guest guide says to arrive early, “very early,” because ballooning is an early-morning sport. Anyone on the field before 6:30 can watch the pilots set up, and many balloonists want extra hands during inflation. A volunteer may be put to holding the envelope or weighting the gondola before lift-off. The guide asks helpers to bring gloves and to keep their shoes off the fabric, which damages easily. Smoking on the field is forbidden (“Propane tanks and lighting up definitely do not mix!”), and civilian drones are banned from the park for the whole festival.

The festival’s own notes describe the equipment. The envelope is rip-stop nylon, sometimes dacron, coated against leaks. The basket is rattan or wicker, each one woven by hand. A balloon carries 30 to 40 gallons of liquid propane under pressure. When the valves open, the burner can throw a flame ten to twenty feet with a loud whoosh, and the guide warns that the noise of inflation may frighten dogs. A balloon has no propulsion and moves only as fast as the wind. Once it is aloft, a chase crew follows it by road and recovers it where it comes down.

The guide also advises dressing in layers. The mornings are crisp and sometimes cold, and the dry air warms quickly once the sun is up. Launches are generally finished by 8 a.m., and a full breakfast follows, with donations going to charity. Balloons fly only in calm air, and the Balloon Meister, Stephen Harrison, has the final say on whether anyone flies. Longtime organizer Randy Looper told the Craig Daily Press in 2026, “Weather is always the biggest unknown.”

The 2026 festival ran July 31 through August 2, with a launch planned each morning. Organizers had said they expected more than twenty balloons on the field each day and asked the public to help crew them. Volunteers who wanted a ride were told it would most likely come on Sunday, with no guarantee. On Friday the festival’s page reported “The first balloon is away!!!” a few minutes after 6:30. Saturday’s post read, “Off to a late start, but the pilots are ready to fly!!” The regular balloons are privately operated and do not take public passengers. In 2026, Wild West Balloon Adventures offered tethered rides at 7 a.m. Saturday for $25 a rider. A tethered balloon rises on ropes and stays secured above the ground.

Saturday in Loudy-Simpson Park

The festival website suggests attending the Friday launch and then exploring the county, including the Wyman Living History Museum, downtown Craig, and the wild horses of Sand Wash Basin. Friday evening’s music in 2026 was downtown at Alice Pleasant Park near Yampa Valley Brewing Co., running from 4 to 10 p.m. Katie Graham played first, then Apple Pie Order, then Stone Company Music.

Saturday is the full day in the park, and admission is free. The Memorial Regional Health Flying Colors 5K and one-mile run and walk start at 7 a.m. St. Michael’s Ministries sells breakfast burritos until 10. Through the day the Colorado Cruisers Classic Car Show fills the park with cars, trucks and equipment; it has been part of the festival since 2014. Craft vendors open at 9, and food vendors and the VFW Post 4265 beer garden follow later in the morning. The guide warns that many vendors do not take credit cards.

Much of the 2026 schedule was aimed at children. Colorado Parks and Wildlife handed out fishing poles by the river from 9 to noon. Unforgettable Foam ran foam parties on the field twice, and the schedule advised bringing a towel. The Yampitheater Playhouse gave train rides at $5 a rider. In the afternoon children up to age 12 made kites and flew them, and those 8 and under needed an adult helper. In 2024, the first year of the kite session, Looper said: “We don’t want too much wind in the morning for the balloons, but hopefully we get some in the afternoon so kids can fly kites on the soccer fields with their parents.”

At 10:30 the Northwest Colorado Health Duck Race starts from the Ranney Street bridge. The rubber ducks float down the Yampa River, and spectators wait for them at the Loudy-Simpson Boat Ramp, where volunteers catch them. At 1:30 the Cardboard Boat Regatta begins on the park’s pond. Looper described it in 2025: “People build boats out of cardboard and duct tape, and then we see who can make it across the pond without sinking.” The fastest boat that finishes with its crew still aboard wins $600. Other prizes go to the best designs, and the Titanic Award goes to the most spectacular sinking. Before 2025 the regatta drew about 15 to 20 boats a year; Looper said entries dropped that year. The 2026 race was the regatta’s sixth. Late in the afternoon, cash-prize bingo is called at the west pavilion.

The 2026 bands on the park stage were Faultline, a Craig rock band, at noon, and The Grocery Story, a blues and rockabilly group, at 2:30. The Sean Moon Band played country rock at 5; a storm had cut its 2025 set short. Dreamboat Annie, a tribute band covering Heart, Journey and Led Zeppelin, headlined from 7:30 to 9.

Flame behind the bandstand

At about 8:30 Saturday night, during the headliner’s set, pilots light their burners for the balloon glow, or candlestick display if conditions call for it. Organizers schedule the two to overlap so that the lit balloons and burners stand behind the concert. Looper said in 2025 that on a good-weather day the festival sees 2,000 to 3,000 people over the course of the day and up to 4,000 for the glow.

The Craig Daily Press has given two accounts of how the arrangement began. Its 2025 article says that in 2021 the glow was canceled because of wind, but the burners were lit behind the stage during a Journey tribute band’s set. “The crowd was mesmerized,” Looper recalled. “Now we do it that way on purpose. It’s become a tradition.” The paper’s 2026 article says the overlap began by accident several years earlier, when sound problems pushed a concert later than planned. The crowd liked it, and organizers kept it.

Weather shaped the rest of the program as well. After several years of good launch conditions, the festival had a run of bad weather from 2016 through 2022, and in some of those years balloons had few chances to fly. In response, organizers filled Friday evening and Saturday with other events. “Balloons are great and wonderful,” Looper said. “But if they don’t fly, it’s a problem if you have nothing else going on.”

From the Air Fest to the Wyman Museum

The festival grew out of Craig’s 2008 centennial, when local organizers staged an air show, the Centennial Air Fest, that drew residents and visitors. Afterward they looked for an aviation event that could last. According to the Craig Daily Press in 2025, the idea began with a conversation between former city council member Ray Beck and his wife, Dixie, after they had attended festivals in neighboring communities. “We thought if other communities could do this, Craig could certainly organize a festival of its own,” Beck said.

Dixie suggested bringing in Tony St. John. “Tony was the guy who would go around to the community and businesses asking for sponsorships,” Beck said. Beck served as the first festival chair. The 2025 article names the founding group as Beck, Patt McCaffrey, Melody Villard and St. John. The 2026 article, citing Looper, lists Beck, Villard, Pam Foster, St. John and others.

The first festival in 2010 was held at the Wyman Museum, just east of Craig, with seven balloons. Wind there made launches difficult, and the following year the festival moved to Loudy-Simpson Park. The count reached its peak in 2019, when 34 balloons flew. After a pause during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2025 article put the usual number at 18 to 25 balloons a year. Several pilots have come back nearly every year since the start. “If you look at most marketing pieces for Craig now, there’s a picture of a balloon,” Looper said. “It’s become a symbol of who we are.”

An all-volunteer committee runs the festival, meeting monthly and then weekly as the dates approach. The budget was about $9,000 in 2010. The Craig Daily Press reported $95,000 in 2025 and about $92,000 in 2026, most of it from local businesses and residents in cash, donated services and equipment. The money pays for pilots’ lodging, meals, propane and travel. The Local Marketing District contributed $168,000 over nine years, including $15,000 in 2025, but that funding has since ended. Looper said future festivals could become smaller without a replacement. “The reason why they’re free is because the merchants of Craig support our events,” he said.

St. John was the festival’s primary fundraiser for more than a decade and built the relationships with Craig merchants that still support it. He died in the year before the 2025 festival, which was dedicated to him. “Without Tony, this festival wouldn’t exist,” Looper said. The 2026 sponsor list opens with the line “In memory of Tony St. John.”