The idea was simple – break a world record, raise money for United Way and give Cleveland a rare feel-good moment after years of bad press. However, what began as a colorful celebration quickly turned into one of the strangest spectacles of the decade.
More than 100,000 people packed downtown Cleveland’s Public Square to watch the spectacle, and for a brief, dazzling moment, it worked. The balloons soared, curling around the Terminal Tower and turning the skyline into a kaleidoscope of color.
Another local journalist, David Moss, told Fox 8 at the time, “It was overwhelming, balloons start like boiling in the air. You thought, ‘Wow, we’re gonna drown in these balloons.’ "
Then the winds shifted. A storm front rolled in and sent the balloons back toward the ground. Within hours, Lake Erie and much of the city were blanketed in deflated rubber. Balloons shut down roads, closed a small airport, and reportedly spooked a prized Arabian horse. One pilot compared flying through the airborne chaos to “flying through an asteroid belt.”
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
Ironically, Cleveland’s star was rising that same year for a very different reason. Just months before Balloonfest, the city had won the bid to become the home of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a move meant to celebrate the city’s cultural legacy and secure its place as a destination for decades to come.
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In hindsight, the moment feels like a perfect time capsule of the ‘80s as a whole with some chaotic optimism, a dash of ambition and a sprinkling of spectacle.
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