Liwa Festival

• Conducted pre-event test flights using wind analysis and terrain assessments to determine optimal take-off and landing sites, ensuring safety, operational efficiency, and strong visual impact.
• Delivered daily free flights over ten consecutive mornings, providing guests with a serene sunrise journey above the Liwa desert and setting a reflective tone to start each day.
• Scheduled the glow show across the final three evenings to maximise visual presence and audience engagement, with attendance growing from 80 to over 300 guests at its peak.
• Deployed experienced pilots and support crews for evening tethered flights, remaining on standby to adapt swiftly to shifting desert conditions, guided by international ballooning safety standards.
• Held daily briefings across all operational teams, including pilots, glow show crew, organisers, and ticketing staff, to maintain seamless coordination and enable timely on-ground adjustments.
• Delivered two additional tethered balloons at the client's request for the festival's grand opening, despite the original setup requiring over a month to plan, demonstrating agility, efficiency, and a strong service ethic under pressure.

• Recalibrated the glow show's performance schedule and soundtrack after the first evening to better align with audience flow and enhance overall rhythm and energy.
• Fully inflated all balloons before each show to create an immediate and commanding visual impact, drawing audiences from across the festival grounds.
• Introduced a synchronised light and sound experience, combining balloon illumination with music to create a multi-sensory spectacle and elevate emotional resonance.
• Responded dynamically to audience behaviour, leading to a substantial increase in attendance and reinforcing our creative team's responsiveness and vision.
• On the final evening, when balloon inflation was impossible due to the weather, we seamlessly transitioned to a modified burner show, maintaining the atmosphere and delivering a strong close despite the conditions.

The Liwa Festival showcased the power of cross-functional collaboration, with multiple teams aligning to deliver a shared vision. Our strategic refinements to the glow show elevated audience engagement, while rapid problem-solving enabled high-impact additions, such as the last-minute tethered balloons at Moreeb Dune.

Notably, the debut of the moon balloon and aerial acrobat performance exemplified Hero Balloon Flights' ability to conceptualise and deliver bespoke experiences tailored to each event's unique identity. This activation captivated audiences and demonstrated our capacity to expand the creative scope of ballooning in a festival context.

Though weather constraints posed operational challenges, they reinforced the importance of ongoing client education about environmental factors in aviation-based activations. Ultimately, the aerial experiences brought a new dimension to the Liwa Festival, affirming the role of ballooning as a powerful storytelling tool within large-scale cultural programming.