Northampton Balloon Festival Northampton reviews by real event-goers

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

It’s been years since I last came to the balloon festival. I won’t bother again. Very few stalls/other things to see and do if it’s gusty (gusty wind means no balloons). Arenas were poorly laid out, unless you stood at the front and waited ages, you can’t see a thing. Parking is a rip off, £5 to dump your car in a field then play “find the exit”.

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Massively disappointed as we couldn’t even get into the venue to experience the balloon festival at all! Booked months in advance for the Saturday afternoon. Drove nearly an hour to get there wven though it was windy so knew the balloons were unlikely to fly. Only to struggle to find where parking was - no signs anywhere foe the event, not helpful if you’re nit familiar with Northampton. All the roads all around the racecourse were completely gridlocked. After an hour of sitting in standstill queues for the car park with 2 young children we gave up and drove home as many people did too. Local streets all gridlocked. Nowhere else to park nearby and then when we were nearly home they decided to open the closed road to let people in. just see the comments on their Facebook page! We’d already missed the equine show which was our highlight to see and were going to miss the stunt bikes. Even with the balloons not flying we really felt we completely missed out. Poorly planned and feel we have been really let down by the organisers of the event. Been visiting the festival for years too. Waste of money and time and no option to get a refund. Just such a rubbish experience.

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

First time going to the balloon festival. Traffic/parking was horrendous, no signs or control with any of this. Fun Fair rides were on average £5 a go. Food & drinks expensive.
My boys wanted to watch the stunt shows but as soon as it started people rammed forwards to the fence not making it safe for my youngest. You could only view the arena area from 2 sides as the other 2 were fenced off allowing general public not in the event to watch!

The only good thing was seeing the balloons go up and the fireworks.

Sadly unless vast improvements are made we won't be returning.

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

It’s such a shame this was a real let down. I know the weather had a part to play but other balloon festivals would tether balloons in bad weather. No balloons to be see in two days .
There was definitely not enough stalls and food places. It was so over priced for food and drinks. We were lucky in one way we arrived early and the staff member on the entrance when we found it , helped us park as I am disabled. But only to find it was open for another hour.
It was so disorganised, and hardly any signs through the town to explain where to go due to roadworks. I won’t be coming back next year unless we see go reviews or the next. Maybe organisers need to speak to the council to get ideas on how to run it when it was cancelled run it was fantastic, had an amazing atmosphere.

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Trying to get to the venue was terrible. Road works had closed roads and no signage as how to get to the carpark. We had to navigate ourselves around backstreets and eventually joined a huge queue to get into the carpark. We gave up ,turned around and found a place to park on the street and then walked with two small children.We really wanted to see the balloons but non in sight. All there was was lots of funfair rides which cost a fortune, loud music and incredibly expensive food. Two sausage buns, a burger and three small cans of drink £30 !About 4pm one balloon started to be inflated.By this time the children were tired so we left. All this was ,was a huge expensive funfair. We shall give it a miss next year

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Very disappointing & would never go again. Roads closed around venue so sat in stationary traffic. Nothing but a fun fair & junk food festival. I understand the weather cannot be predicted but no signs of a balloon on Saturday in the arena. Nightmare getting out of the place. Just an all round horrible experience

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Couldn't get to the venue. No signs. Complete waste of a 2 hour journey. I was aware of the road works but signs would have been a good idea to get to the venue.

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Parking appalling
We expected that our payment was for a balloon spectacular but all we got was:
Totally inadequate parking signs and access
An extremely noisy funfair for which we had to pay extra
A very brief glow of six rather ordinary balloons
This was just an excuse to make money from a funfair on the pretence of seeing a display of 30 balloons

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Parking was terrible, no balloons see, food was expensive and so were the rides. Atmosphere was good but only stayed for 2hrs

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

The event was great, unfortunately we didn’t get to see the balloons we had never been before and at 6 it was too windy for the balloons to fly so postponed till 9 we had grandchildren with us and they were tired as we arrived at about 1 o’clock they had been running around watching other entertainment so we left at 7 but will return another year but we will not come until about 4 o’clock. All other entertainment was great grandson loved the stunt motorbikes.

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Although this wasn’t your fault the organisation of even trying to get into the venue was an absolute shambles. Roads closed, stuck in non moving traffic for everyone trying to get there - these roadworks/road closures so close to the event was a nightmare / starting 14th August. West Northants and Highways need to give their heads a wobble and get it better organised for next time. No organisation whatsoever. Actually never used our prepaid tickets, as queue was awful with so many people waiting and not moving.. We walked off in the end as had taken us nearly 2 hours just to get parked and then walk to the queue.

Review of Northampton Balloon Festival

Was great, just a shame the balloons were not able to go up due to too much wind