European Balloon Festival
Igualada’s 2026 festival kept its ground activities, but the balloon flights were cancelled because of extreme fire risk.
The European Balloon Festival’s main site is Parc Central in Igualada, on Avinguda de Catalunya beside the hospital. Some activities also use city squares. The festival should not be confused with a gathering based at Igualada’s aerodrome.
The organiser’s notice for 8–12 July 2026 cancelled the flying programme because of the extreme risk of wildfire, while other activities continued. The normal launch schedule shown elsewhere on the website was therefore not a guarantee of flights during that edition. Photographs of inflated balloons on this page are from earlier years.
For a future visit, read both the programme and the latest operational notices. Passenger bookings are separate from watching the festival, and operators can suspend flights when conditions require it. No 2027 dates were confirmed during this review. A year-round balloon trip in the region is a different booking from a flight during the festival.
Sources and photograph
Editorial review: 9 November 2026. Source 1
Archive photograph of European Balloon Festival. It does not show the line-up for a forthcoming edition. Photograph by Jordiferrer. CC BY-SA 4.0. Responsive versions may be cropped and resized.