Sint‑Niklaas (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – No hot‑air balloons rose above the Grote Markt in Sint‑Niklaas on Saturday morning as excessive wind forced organisers to cancel the traditional launch window of the city’s Vredefeesten (Peace Festival), one of Europe’s oldest and largest balloon meetings. Although the morning period had been ruled out because of safety issues, festival organizers noted that the conditions would likely improve during the course of the day, thereby increasing the possibility of night flying and creating a dazzling skyline over Waasland.
Why were Saturday’s morning balloon flights cancelled?
The grounding of all the balloons for the Saturday morning show was made after assessing the weather and realizing that the winds were too strong to operate within the safety guidelines of hot air balloons. It is important to note that the decision to ground the balloons was precautionary only to ensure there is no uncontrollable drifting or landing danger.
“No balloons took off from the Grote Markt in Sint‑Niklaas during the Peace Festival on Saturday morning either. This was due to excessive wind,”
festival communications noted in an update posted on the official Vredefeesten website and associated channels.
By highlighting the fact that this was not an anomaly, but instead a trend that had been observed back in the 2026 version due to weather determining the flying schedule. Safety is the primary concern regarding the balloon rally since it takes place in a crowded urban plaza as opposed to an airstrip. Given the presence of buildings, trees and a large crowd around, the wind makes it difficult for inflation, take-off and landing to take place.
When have similar weather cancellations occurred at the Vredefeesten?
The most recent example where the decision was directly made due to the fog occurred in 2024, when heavy fog caused the organisers to cancel Saturday morning launches in the same festival weekend. At that time, one of the co-organisers, Elisabeth Rosseneu, gave a similar explanation regarding the problem by saying: “There is fog, which means we can’t fly today” but mentioned that flights were still possible in the evening as the weather would clear up. Moreover, in 2019, bad weather led to problems with flight scheduling and an unplanned landing, when three people were injured by a collision with a dike in Tielrode, thus showing how dangerous such situations can be for the crew and passengers.
