The New Jersey Lottery Festival of Ballooning has been held annually at the Solberg Airport in

Readington Township, New Jersey Readington Township is a township located in the easternmost portion of Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township's population was 16,126, reflecting an increase of 323 (+2.0%) from the 15,803 ...

since 1983. Its lead sponsor is

New Jersey Lottery The New Jersey Lottery is run by the U.S. state of New Jersey. Its In-house draw games are: Pick-3, Pick-4, Jersey Cash 5, Pick-6, Quick Draw, and Cash Pop. Its multi-jurisdictional draw games are: Cash4Life, Mega Millions, and Powerball. The ...

. In 2012, the festival hosted around 125 special shape and sport hot air balloons. It also had music concerts, crafters and vendors, food, carnival rides and

firework Fireworks are a class of low explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large number of devices in ...

s, which attracted more than 175,000 people. It had more than fifty corporate partners.

Festival Information and History

In 1983, Bill Lewis, working with

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...

, brought approximately ten hot air balloons to the Union 76 Truck Stop on

Interstate 78 Interstate 78 (I-78) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Northeastern United States, running from I-81 northeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, through Allentown to western and northern New Jersey and terminating at the Holland T ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

for the inaugural event. After two years they moved the festival to its current site at Solberg Airport where it grew to 40-50 balloons and 30,000-40,000 attendees. In 1993, Howard Freeman and John Korff acquired the New Jersey Festival of Ballooning and signed a long-term deal with Solberg Airport. That same year they secured a long term sponsorship agreement with

QuickChek QuickChek is a chain of convenience stores based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey with 153 stores in New Jersey and New York. The first store opened in Dunellen, New Jersey in 1967, and has since then grown into a chain. Several stores include ph ...

. In time, the festival has become the largest event in New Jersey and the largest summertime balloon festival in North America. In 2000, to differentiate the festival from other balloon festivals, major concerts were added to the festival. The first concert presented the legendary band,

The Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by the ...

. Each subsequent festival included three major concerts. Headliners have included

The Doobie Brothers The Doobie Brothers are an American rock band formed in 1970 in San Jose, California, known for their flexibility in performing across numerous genres and their vocal harmonies. Active for five decades, with their greatest success in the 1970s, ...

Hall & Oates Daryl Hall and John Oates, commonly known as Hall & Oates, are an American pop rock duo formed in Philadelphia in 1970. Daryl Hall is generally the lead vocalist; John Oates primarily plays electric guitar and provides backing vocals. The two ...

, Styx, Foreigner, America, Jonas Brothers and KC & the Sunshine Band. In 2020, the Festival of Ballooning began a new partnership with the

becoming the festival's title sponsor. Unfortunately, later on in the year the festival got cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. It resumed in July 2021. A portion of all proceeds from the festival are donated to the

Children's Miracle Network Children's Miracle Network Hospitals (CMN Hospitals) (French: Réseau Enfants-Santé (RES)) is a nonprofit organization that raises funds for children's hospitals in the U.S. and Canada. Donations support the health of 10 million children each ...

, which funds three pediatric hospitals in New Jersey.

Virgin ritual

Since 2004, the festival has hired a

virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

to perform a

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized ...

to ensure good weather for the festival. Howard Freeman, one of the organizers, claims the ritual comes from

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. It involves having a virgin drive a

golf cart A golf cart (alternatively known as a golf buggy or golf car) is a small motorized vehicle designed originally to carry two golfers and their golf clubs around a golf course with less effort than walking. Over time, variants were introduced ...

to each of the four corners of the festival site. At each corner she picks up blades of

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...

, mumbles random words, penetrates whole

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onio ...

s and

pepper Pepper or peppers may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant ** Black pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae ** Bell pepper ** Chili ...

s with

knives A knife ( : knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidenced ...

, then jams the knives with the produce into the ground.''The Star-Ledger'': Forget weather insurance, this balloon fest has virtue
Retrieved August 2, 2007 The 2007 virgin, Victoria Brumfield (born 1979), said it is a mixture of "fun and embarrassment" and that "if it does rain, my virtue is not to blame. I'm waiting until I'm married and no one has asked yet." She is a devout

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into severa ...

.''WCBS Newsradio'': A Virgin Could Guarantee Good Weather for the NJ Hot Air Balloon Festival
Retrieved August 2, 2007

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:New Jersey Lottery Festival Of Ballooning Hot air balloon festivals in the United States Tourist attractions in Hunterdon County, New Jersey Festivals in New Jersey Festivals established in 1983 Readington Township, New Jersey 1983 establishments in New Jersey

Festival Information and History

Virgin ritual

See also

References

External links