ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Pretty soon, hundreds of balloons will take to the skies while thousands and thousands of tourists fill our streets.

Many of those tourists will make a trip to Old Town Albuquerque at some point. But it’s a neighborhood that’s faced some issues recently. For example, vandalism, a burned down shop and rising security costs for business owners. 

So, KOB 4 went to Old Town to find out how some businesses are preparing for their busiest time of the year. 

“I mean, my only worry is if I forgot, like, a syrup or, like, I forgot, like printer paper,” said Rodolfo Rivera, general manager of Outpost 1706. 

The bar at Outpost 1706 is stocked and ready for those Balloon Fiesta crowds.

“We’re excited. I mean, we’ve been prepping for this since mid-August,” said Rivera.

Rivera says the upstairs bar usually serves around 100 thirsty guests on a normal day, but during Balloon Fiesta the numbers go up. 

It’s the same story downstairs at Happy Hiker.

“It’s probably well over 100 per hour. So yeah, we see at least 10 times as many people,” said Camp Dozier, owner of Happy Hiker. 

Dozier says they learned some important lessons about those Balloon Fiesta tourists last year.

“They think of Albuquerque as the desert. They don’t realize how cold it is at four in the morning,” said Dozier. “So this year, we’re overstocked on gloves, overstocked on beanies and then a couple of shirts.” 

Unlike last year, Rivera and Dozier know there’s some uneasiness about Old Town right now.

“What happens to one business kind of happens to us all. That being said, that tragic event kind of brought us all together,” Rivera said. 

“We’re no stranger to that, too. We’ve had our door broken twice,” said Dozier. “It’s never fun when that happens, but we had gone from two to three incidents a month to maybe one.”

Both say extra patrols from Albuquerque police and Bernalillo County deputies are making a difference.

“It’s allowed us to kind of just kind of relax a little bit and not always have to just worry about what’s going on here and there,” said Rivera. 

For any tourists worried about recent headlines like these.

“Anything like that, that did happen, was always at night, you know, when nobody was here. If there are people here in Old Town and anybody’s causing a problem, oh, the reaction is quick,” Dozier said. 

So for now.

“We’re prepped, we’re ready to go,” said Rivera.

“Just lots of excitement,” said Dozier. 

On top of the added patrols, Albuquerque police also deployed some extra crime-fighting technology in Old Town, including mobile cameras, license plate readers, and gunshot detection microphones.

The folks KOB 4 talked to were quick to point out Old Town is so busy during Balloon Fiesta that it is rare criminals can get away with vandalism or anything like that.