There were thirty thousand festival-goers who participated in the35th International Balloon Festival of Châteaud’Oex this year. Because of the perfect weather conditions , the balloons were able to fly on five days of the nine-day long Festival, and the organizers were pleased with the results.
In all, almost 400 take-offs took place during the Festival. Due to very fine weather on the first weekend, a new record was set, with 105 flights performed on Saturday alone (the previous record was from 2006, with 101 flights).The highlights of this event were wingsuit jumps from the basket of a balloon and from a helicopter by the Vaud native and extreme sports enthusiast Géraldine Fasnacht.
Many budding balloon pilots also had their chance to fly in a balloon for the first time ever. Everyone were fascinated by fifteen special shape balloons inflating and taking off, and by demonstrations of ASIMO, Honda’s humanoid robot, featured on the last weekend in the Great Hall of Château-d’Oex.
