balloon afficianadoes the world over. Firefly has gone on to continue innovating in both their artwork and custom designs, always employing top creative engineers and most importantly, top quality artisans to maintain building all the aspects of their products. Tey are dedicated to building balloons from scratch and by hand using almost 100% All- American raw materials and their balloons are considered some of the most beautiful in the industry. Today, though the initial creative design process uses computers more frequently, the hands-on experience and creativity of their graphics and layout teams is still visible in the balloons, whether they become extravagant novelty showpieces or a simple beloved beauty, liſting local passengers into the skies above their hometowns.


e, 1963. Photo courtesy of BallooningHistory.com


Many, many thanks go to Jack Ponticelli from Firefly for our Artizen interview. If you make it to the festival, be sure to visit with Jack as he will be one of the pilots participating. If you’re lucky, he’ll be carrying up some passengers, but if not, don’t miss his flying one of Tracy’s original designs in at least one morning competition.


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