Those who attended last year’s Balloons Over Vermilion will notice a few changes if they are returning this weekend. Pat O’Shaughnessy, chairman of the event, says the changes are an attempt to improve things. ‘’We’ve expanded the entertainment area, which combines kind of the beer tent with the stage. There’s a volleyball tournament that’s being moved from Kids Area over to that area. (There’s) a life-size target that you can kick Velcro that you can kick soccer balls into or shoot arrows into (is) over there. The knocker balls will be back in Kid Zone. They may be bringing some of the adult ones over to that adult area too. It’s just some little tweaks that we’ve made where we saw things we can improve.’’
And O’Shaughnessy adds there will also be more vendors. ‘’We have expanded the vendors, I think we’re up to 31 vendors – food trucks that are coming into town to do this. We did double the number of bouncy houses in the Kids Zone,’’ said O’Shaughnessy during an interview with VermilionCountyFirst.com News. ‘’Don Black the Bubble Man will be back. He’s always a hit favorite. One thing, Bill, we learned – we’d said we were doing this for the kids last year was our motto – and it remains that. We just didn’t know that age didn’t define kids. We saw 90-year-olds with the big bubble wands last year – and 2-year-olds with the bubble wands. So, I mean age does’t define it, so I guess we’re doing it for everybody, because everybody is a kid at heart.’’
There are 30 hot air balloons and two special shaped balloons that are scheduled to fly on Friday and Saturday. The event at the Vermilion Regional Airport opens at 3 p.m. on Friday and runs until midnight. Saturday’s hours are 1:00 p.m. until midnight.
[In the photos some Danville Public Works employees help prepare the grounds at the Vermilion Regional Airport. The crews were putting up fencing. Part of the work being done was to place fencing on parking lots where three separate bus loading zones will be located.]
