Hot air balloon show draws huge crowds on opening day at Parade Grounds in Secunderabad

The Hyderabad Hot Air Balloon Festival opened astatine Parade Grounds successful Secunderabad connected Friday (January 16, 2026) with ample crowds gathering contempt delays and sold-out tickets for the archetypal evening session.

The amusement was primitively scheduled to statesman astatine 5.00 p.m., but operations were delayed. The balloons were inflated opening from astir 5.30 p.m. arsenic the prima began to set. Even earlier that, members of the nationalist started arriving arsenic aboriginal arsenic 4.00 p.m. successful the anticipation of witnessing the spectacle and trying their luck astatine securing a ride. By evening, the parking batch was filled with cars and two-wheelers, reflecting the beardown nationalist involvement successful the event.

Malkajgiri Police had enactment up a salient banner astatine the entranceway reading, “Public Notice: Today’s Hot Air Balloon Show. Tickets are sold out. Please cooperate”. However, this did small to deter people, with thousands gathering astir the enclosure to ticker the balloons being inflated for the tethered flights.Officials said a full of 133 tickets were sold for Day 1 of the festival.

Unlike balloon rides held connected the metropolis outskirts, which covered astir 13 kilometres and lasted for implicit an hour, the Secunderabad flights were restricted owed to controlled airspace. Around 14 balloons were tethered, meaning they were tied to the crushed with ropes to power movement. The balloons were permitted to emergence lone vertically to an altitude of astir 50 feet, stay airborne for astir 7 minutes, and past descend backmost to the aforesaid spot.