Running costs of Balloons over Waikato hits $1m heights

Thursday, 11 June 2026

A new report reveals the Balloons Over Waikato festival is now a $1 million heavyweight event but it does have some issues to overcome.

As part of a funding agreement with Hamilton City Council, event organisers have to produce a post-event report.

This year, the report shows the the nine-day festival closed its financial books with a final net loss of $28,557, compared with the initially drafted budget profit of $7200.

The report shows the event took in revenue of $1.07m .

That comprised $442,535 in sponsorships, $265,000 in grants and $300,000 in contra income and $58,679 in other income.

Expenses hit a total of $1.09m, including general event running costs and expenses around venue hire, administration expenses, entertainment charges, balloonists fees and resource consents costs.

This year, Balloons Over Waikato celebrated its 27th anniversary as New Zealand's largest annual free community festival.

A decision to extend the festival by four days from the previous year’s format paid off, the festival attracting 160,000 people over nine-days.

The spectacular opening night highlight, the ZURU Nightglow at the University of Waikato, issued 60,000 free tickets (including a 5000-ticket allocation directly to local schools).

The opening night event featured carnival rides, live music, a hot air balloon Glow Show, and fireworks. Winds impacted the Glow Show, and organisers note in the post event report that there were traffic egress “challenges” that are being reviewed for future improvement.

Complaints on the event’s Facebook Page labelled the after-event congestion ‘’chaos’’, with 60,000 people trying to leave through just two exit points, categorised as “shocking’’ and ”unsafe’’ by attendees.

The post-event report confirms that “pre-purchased parking structures” and the Park and Ride shuttle operations in particular, are under review for future festivals.

A drone strike on a balloon during the event was also dealt with.

The report says both the drone incident and the egress issues on opening night were “managed pro-actively with clear and timely communication to media to ensure accurate reporting and to reinforce our commitment to attendee safety and operational improvements alongside the relevant service providers.'

Deteriorating weather condition to the back end of the festival meant one and a half days of morning flying were lost but non-flying aspects of the programme, such as The Base Basket Burn—helped maintain programme stability and continued engagement regardless of the weather.

This year is the first year in a new three-year funding deal from HCC.

Under the terms of the deal the council provides $130,000 a year to the event from its Major Event Sponsorship Fund.