SLATINGTON, Pa. — The rolling hills of Slatington are the backdrop this weekend for what has become an annual tradition in the Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n
The 7th Annual Lehigh Valley Balloon Fest at Slatington Airport runs through Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Over the years, it has grown to include mass hot air balloon launches, laser-lit displays, and fireworks.<\/p>\n
It’s the brainchild of a Slatington native, who wanted to give something back.<\/p>\n
It takes dozens of balloons to make a festival and only one person to inspire it.<\/p>\n
Will Randell graduated from Northern Lehigh High School, but didn’t take up the hobby until his 30’s. Now, he and his family promote hot air balloon festivals across the USA through Randell’s company, Lehigh Valley Hot Air.<\/p>\n
“We probably do about 15 to 16 of them throughout the country. We decided to bring one of them back to Slatington, my hometown,” Randell said.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, Randell didn’t learn how to fly until 8 years ago.<\/p>\n
“For me, it’s just passion. It’s passion-driven,” Randell said.<\/p>\n
He wanted to give something back to his community. That’s when the Lehigh Valley Balloon Festival was born.<\/p>\n
“We started the event seven years ago. COVID was our first year. It exploded because nobody could get out of their house. We had a drive-through event, and we haven’t looked back since,” said Randell.<\/p>\n
Its popularity in the region is blowing up, as dozens of balloonists come in from around the country for the weekend. Mike Hughes, from Florida, raves about Randell’s energy and commitment.<\/p>\n
“I think that’s about the greatest effort you could give,” Hughes said of Randell. “If you love doing something, and you can involve your community, there’s commerce, these people get to make money, these kids get to have a great time, and it’s all because of Will.”<\/p>\n
The gates open Saturday at 4 p.m. Admission is $33 for general admission, and less for children and seniors. The balloons will launch after 6 p.m., weather permitting, and that includes the wind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SLATINGTON, Pa. — The rolling hills of Slatington are the backdrop this weekend for what has become an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,433],"class_list":["post-274384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-lehigh-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}