CLARK FREEPORT – After tentative announcements, it’s final.
The annual Hot Air International Balloon Festival is jumping from Valentines to Holy Week. From the usual February in time for Valentines Day crowd, the festival will be held on April 10 to 13, in time for the Holy Week pilgrims and tourists. And from this freeport, it will move 33 kilometers away in Barangay Prado Siongco in Lubao, hometown of Gov. Lilia Pineda.
This was announced yesterday by Noel Castro, Jr., the chairman of the newly established corporation registered as Pilipinas International Balloon Festival, Inc. “which will henceforth manage and operate this year’s ballooning event and future events as well.” Past festivals at Clark were operated by pilot Capt. Joy Roa and subsidized by the government-owned Clark Development Corp.
“The annual festival has been moved to its new location in view of the air traffic situation in aviation-related activities at the Clark International Airport where at least ten international and domestic airlines now operate,” Castro explained.
He said “we were told that flying hot-air balloons at an altitude of 4,000 feet may inconvenience airlines especially if launched during peak hours, thus the decision to move out of the 25-km no-fl y zone for balloons off Clark.”
Castro noted that “this year’s venue is situated in 250-hectare property in Barangay Prado Siongco in Lubao where a world-class theme park is now under construction.” The festival will be held just before Holy Week which attracts thousands of tourists to this province.
Good Friday this year falls on April 18. “The area would be the located at the largest wakeboard park in Southeast Asia with some 57 international standard villas and later a championship golf course,” he said.
Castro also said that “aside from the fly-in and fly-out events early in the morning and late afternoon (during the hot air festival), the pilots are expected to showcase their evening spectacle called night glow by pumping their tethered balloons with hot air to simulate a kaleidoscope of multi-colored incandescent bulbs. This will be launched on a Friday and Saturday only.”
“Other special events would include wakeboarding, kite flying, parade of festivals, live bands, cultural presentations, cook fest, craft demonstration and car show,” he added. Castro is the founding president of the Angeles City Four Wheelers Club, Inc., the same group that volunteered to serve as the so-called chase crew during the past hot air fests at Clark since the start in 1994.
Steve Kim, a 30-year Korean veteran balloon pilot who has been participating in the same event since its beginning, is a member of the group to manage the festival in Lubao. “This time, the organizing committee is supported by the Culture, Arts and Tourism Office of Pampanga led by its provincial tourism officer Mr. Arwin Lingat who will be assisted by the provincial tourism council composed of tourism officers from all the towns in the province,” Castro also said..
He said “spectators are advised to arrive at the site daily at 5:00 in the morning to catch the early morning fly out.
Entrance tickets are pegged at P150 per person; parking fee for cars at P50 each and P100 for buses. “ Further queries can be addressed to the Culture, Arts and Tourism Office of Pampanga, Capitol Compound, City of San Fernando, Pampanga, Tel. No. (63 45) 963-0107 or email address pampanga_tourism@ yahoo.com.
