Ballooning Championship Bid Fails

Leeton, New South Wales, has been unsuccessful in its bid to host next year’s Australian National Hot Air Ballooning Championships.

The committee formed to bring the event to town found out recently Leeton would not be hosting the championships, with Canowindra the favoured venue.

However, it was not all negative news for the committee, which may put in another application to host the event in 2016.

Committee member Craig Berry said improvements could be made to ensure Leeton is in with a shot next time.

“Basically, Canowindra have done it before and we haven’t, so it went their way,” he said.

“What we can do now is build on our Easter weekends and the balloon glow during the SunRice Festival.

“Usually we will get about 3000 people to the balloon glow, so we could try and make that even bigger.

“Another thing we will look at doing is having a ‘key grab’ competition when we have the balloons here over Easter.

“That way we are showing we are capable of having competitions here … it’s only about eight months to next year’s championships and Canowindra already had the funding for the event and they’ve done it before.

“Hopefully with a bit of work we can get it here in 2016.”

If Leeton was to be chosen as the host, the event would have been named the Leeton Balloon Fiesta.

“We’ll have between 15 and 25 balloons here next Easter, so if we build that up, we’ll be in with a better shot next time I think,” Mr Berry said.

“If we can keep the committee we have going now that will be a big positive too.

“There’s no doubt that Leeton can hold this event … it’s a great spot.

“I know we can do it.”

via – The Irrigator.