Parish council to review balloon festival concerns

A parish council said it will review concerns over a balloon festival after people complained online about the event at the weekend.

Northumberland Balloon Festival took place at Tynedale Park in Corbridge, promising visitors hot air balloon shows, live music and a funfair.

But people on social media expressed their disappointment, with some event-goers telling the BBC there were hardly any balloons to see.

Event organisers Richardson's Amusements declined to comment. Corbridge Parish Council said event goers' comments would be "looked at".

Exclusive Ballooning, which supplied the balloons for the event, said the main launches on Saturday and Sunday could not take place because of the rain, but a glow show took place as planned on Friday.

William Clouston, chair of Corbridge Parish Council, said comments would be looked at during a parish council meeting next week, to "make representations to the organisers and the authorities".

"I'm very concerned about the large number of complaints and negative comments that have been put forward by people, just coming up to me in Corbridge and telling me about it, but also on social media, " Mr Clouston said.

But Andrew Holly, operation director at Exclusive Ballooning, said the feedback they had received on site "was extremely positive".

"We recognise that it may be disappointing for people who were hoping to see more activity, the teams had travelled from far and wide to put on a show and were equally frustrated," Mr Holly said.

"But sadly we cannot control the weather and the safety of our teams and ground crew must and does come first at all times."

Tynedale Rugby Club, which opened its grounds for the event, said it was "extremely disappointed" to hear about the complaints.

"In the light of those complaints, and the absence of any post event comment from the organisers, we are sorry that the event did not live up to its advance publicity and expectations," a statement added.

Kim Chard told the BBC she saw just one balloon take off, and a second one being deflated when she arrived at 18:40 BST on Saturday for the evening show.

"It was advertised that the balloons would be tethered all day for "instagrammable photos", a launch at 19:30 BST with a light show at around 22:00 BST," she said.

But Ms Chard added that there were no balloons to be seen after 18:45 BST.

Shirley Howarth from Darlington said it was not windy or raining when she was at the event but only saw one balloon.

"There was meant to be at least balloons tethered for you to see but there were none," she said.

Exclusive Ballooning said teams had worked to bring additional activity on both Saturday and Sunday, with "constant balloon activity" from 15:45 BST on Sunday.

"As a bonus activity on Friday, we were able to also launch several balloons - this was additional activity to what was scheduled," it added.

Follow BBC North East on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].