THE Balloon Festival was spectacular! But it was also a spectacular missed opportunity for Canberra.

I’d like to see it at least join Floriade as a signature tourism event for our town because Floriade is either close to its use-by date or way past it.

I support the event and always will because I love this city and I want to help generate those tourist numbers, but let’s face reality – everything that can be done with the flower festival has been. There are no new ideas.

Those who attend, admittedly in their thousands, are seeing pretty much the same flower beds they saw last year, just a wee bit smaller. Yes, we’ve got Nightfest, but everything else has been rehashed time and again for years. Floriade’s long history will ensure that it keeps on attracting a crowd, but it doesn’t excite me anymore.

But, wow, those hot-air balloons; dozens of them rising over the city centre at dawn, then drifting across the lake and into the suburbs. This is truly surreal.

It helps when there are some “out there” balloons such as Yoda, the soccer ball, the Angry Bird and the Dodo. I think Events ACT did a fine job on the morning with entertainment and catering… but I say, make it bigger still.

Imagine if we had a serious go at promoting it. This could be huge. Where else can you see dozens of hot air balloons rising up over a city centre?

Our Balloon Festival is a superstar on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The social-media groundwork has already been done organically. It’s time to ramp it up through traditional, mainstream media and make sure all roads lead to Canberra when the balloons are on.

And how about running a night spectacular like they used to years ago? I can remember seeing the balloons at the start of the festival one night tethered at Manuka Oval.

I’d even be happy to see the Skywhale return, I think.