Citrus Classic Balloon Fest: On the ground problems to be addressed
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Published: August 13, 2008
The inaugural Citrus Classic Balloon Festival will be addressed in the coming weeks with debriefing sessions to ensure that next year’s celebration of hot air ballooning goes as smoothly as gently floating through the sky.
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Times
The inaugural Citrus Classic Balloon Festival will be addressed in the coming weeks with debriefing sessions to ensure that next year’s celebration of hot air ballooning goes as smoothly as gently floating through the sky. And that includes ensuring that traffic and shuttle glitches that occurred on the ground are eliminated at the 2009 Citrus Classic.
The July 25-26 Festival, held at Santa Paula Airport, drew thousands of visitors to Santa Paula, a crowd above what even event coordinator Carla Edwards expected. “We had about 8,000 people, mostly on the first night,” who jammed Santa Paula Airport for the visually spectacular glow of regular and fantasy hot air balloons.
Edwards had initially estimated that the expected attendance for the two-day event would be 5,000 to 7,000 visitors. The Festival also attracted hordes of news media, and was featured in newspapers and television broadcasts across the nation.
Edwards added that in coming weeks a series of debriefings would be held, as well as a volunteer appreciation party. A debriefing will also be held with city staff, noted Edwards, to ensure that expected special event services are in place for next year’s Classic.
Edwards has already met with the Optimist Club, which operated the paid parking lot east of the airport. “The Optimists, who were there two days straight, solved problems on the spot” and, said Edwards, proved to be highly efficient as well as friendly and helpful to visitors.
Santa Paula Airport is a “great venue, very visible,” said Police Chief Steve MacKinnon, but “we were initially disappointed by the planning that had been promised. But we jumped in an took it over that afternoon on the fly and got everything in place prior to the buildup of people showing up.”
Lack of signage directing visitors to public parking presented the “main problems. We had a very large amount of people arriving in Santa Paula who hadn’t been here before,” who MacKinnon speculated might have used an Internet mapping service to find Santa Paula Airport.
Once visitors arrived, they found “no parking in the immediate area, and that was very frustrating to those people” who exited Highway 126 or traveled side streets, which lacked directional signage for parking lots and shuttle service. In addition, “There were some problems with shuttles not having maps” of all public parking sites where visitors parked and waited for transportation to the festival.
“There was some confusion in the earlier part of the evening, but we went back to the Police Station and whipped out a real quick map,” about 1,000 copies that were distributed to festival-goers as they pulled up to the airport. “Traffic problems” noted MacKinnon, “then pretty much cleared up on their own.”
Another challenge was the dark stretch of Santa Maria Street in front of the festival entrance, where people were exiting and entering shuttle buses: “There was no lighting, but we got the Fire Department to bring down their light truck and light that whole area. Fire was fairly quick in getting their unit there, so there were no problems.”
Overall, MacKinnon noted, the inaugural festival “was a first attempt, and with all the little trip-ups it still went really well. It’s a learning experience for the organizers, and when they do it next year it will be double the success.”
“The Police Department was very, very helpful” leading up to and during the festival, said Edwards, who noted that a debriefing with the city’s public safety departments would also be scheduled.
Planning priorities are already being set for next year’s festival, including increasing sponsorships, attracting “more and earlier volunteers,” and providing more on site parking as well as better coordination of same, including proper and properly displayed signage.
Even with the glitches at the inaugural event - which featured about two-dozen hot air balloons - all agree that the event was a positive one shared with the community in many ways. “The people who attended spread throughout the city,” visiting local restaurants and hotels.
Feedback from those who attended gave Santa Paula high marks. “They said the SPPD was very friendly and helpful,” said Edwards. “Everybody appreciated there was a problem, but police and fire were so great” that disruptions were minimized.
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