Festivals that no longer run
Events that stopped, paused, changed rhythm, or never existed at all. We keep them here rather than deleting the entries: a list that quietly drops a name teaches nobody anything, and these are the pages that every other calendar still gets wrong.
An event that ends rarely announces it, so these entries survive on other calendars long after the last balloon flew. We keep them with the reason and the date we last checked, because a list that quietly drops a name teaches nobody anything — the ones still running are in the calendar.
The ones written up so far
Balloons Over Wanaka
Balloons Over Wanaka does not exist and never has. Where the name came from, how it spreads, and what actually flies over Wanaka.
Enenvol, the Grand Est successor
The event built to succeed the world's largest balloon gathering lasted a single edition and was wound up at a loss. What flies at Chambley now.
Ferrara Balloons Festival
Italy's largest balloon festival ran fifteen times and stopped in 2019. Nothing replaced it at that scale, and September lists still carry the name.
Grand Est Mondial Air Ballons
Grand Est was the largest balloon gathering in the world until 2023. What happened to it, what replaced it, and why lists still show it as upcoming.
Icicle Balloon Fest
Icicle Balloon Fest appears on balloon festival lists and has never taken place. Where the invention probably came from, and what is real nearby.
Napa Valley Balloon Festival
There is no balloon festival in Napa Valley and there never was. Where the entry came from, and what actually flies over the vineyards.
New Jersey Festival of Ballooning
The largest summer balloon festival on the US east coast has not flown since 2023, and nobody ever announced an end. Why lists still show it as annual.
Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta
Malaysia's state balloon fiesta last flew in 2018 and its website still describes a coming edition. Why the private one in Penang outlived it.
Warsteiner Internationale Montgolfiade
Warstein quietly moved from every year to every other year. It does not run in 2026, its own site does not say so, and calendars still list it every September.
These pages are the reason this calendar exists. A festival that stops rarely says so: the website keeps last year's poster, the social account goes quiet instead of posting a goodbye, and every listing that copied the entry keeps it for another season. The result is that some of the best-known names in ballooning appear on calendars years after the last balloon flew.
We keep them, with what happened and the date we last checked. Deleting an entry looks tidier and teaches nobody anything — the next person to search the name finds the same stale listings and repeats the same work. Saying that an event ended, and why, is the only version of this page that is worth reading.
The group covers four different situations that get confused with each other: events that have genuinely stopped, events on hold that may return, events that quietly moved to alternate years without telling anyone, and a handful that never existed at all. Only the last two are surprising, and only the last one is impossible to check by visiting a website.
If you know something we do not — an event that has restarted, a date that has been announced, an entry we have wrong — the fastest way to fix it is to tell us where to look. Every row on this site carries the source we last checked and the date we checked it, precisely so that a correction can be argued with evidence rather than asserted.