Dwindling support pushes hot air balloon event to February 2024

The Pahrump’s hot air balloon festival has been moved to February, according to organizers, who announced other changes to the event.

The event has been a popular celebration for both locals and visitors for many years in the valley, according to organizer and operator Doug Campbell, who told the Pahrump Valley Times that the multi-day event will now take place in February 2024, rather than next month.

“Due to the timing this year, I just didn’t feel good about trying to move forward with it in November,” he said. “We’re gonna move it to Feb. 23, 24 and 25 of next year, and we’re going to try to keep it at Petrack Park.”

Campbell said there has been scheduling conflicts with the festival in the past several years.

“In the last two years when I’ve done it, it’s been in November,” he said. “When the Chamber of Commerce had it, they said people weren’t coming out to attend the carnival, and they changed it to March or April, so essentially, they put the carnival a priority over the balloons for the balloon festival, because they said it was too cold.”

But typically March and April are the windiest time of the year in Nevada.

“So that’s not a good time of year for ballooning,” he said.

Campbell cited those reasons and others for the date change.

“We were having a hard time getting a lot of community support that we so graciously had in the past,” he said. “I guess a lot of it was because of the road closures in Death Valley and businesses here were feeling the drop. A few years ago, everybody was giving us hotel rooms, propane, and everything that we needed to do the event. This year, we’re getting a very slow response and I was running out of time.”

Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes