RV reservations for 2023 Balloon Fiesta sell out

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta brings in people from all over the state, country, and world. 

Many people pack up their RV and make a vacation of it, much like the popular Luminaria Tour, those RV spots are a hot ticket item. So hot, they burned thousands trying to get one Wednesday.  

The demand led to a website traffic jam with some people comparing it to the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco.

Thousands of people were refreshing and reopening tabs on their computers Wednesday trying to get a coveted RV reservation. 

We caught up with one couple about their experience this morning.

“I’ve read in the comments that some of the people got put in a waiting room, we never experienced that we kept getting an error message,” said Susan Skelton. 

Susan and John Skelton are Balloon Fiesta rookies trying to reserve an RV space.  Both tested their luck on separate computers Wednesday morning. 

“I click on the bookmark page, you know, and then you know, it would just spin and spin and spin. And it would either time out or we’d get the error message like Susan was saying, then I just open up another tab, and I’d start all over again. And it was probably 15 minutes before I was able to get through,” said John. 

Balloon Fiesta officials say there were over two million website requests from more than 60,000 people. 

The Skeltons say it’s like playing the lottery, playing for one of only about 1,700 spots.

“At the same time, somebody else could be selecting that same thing. So it’s kind of luck of the draw whoever can get their credit card information in there first and how quickly each computer processes, that sort of thing,” said Susan. 

Tom Garrity with Balloon Fiesta says on their end, things went off without an RV hitch. 

“The server’s maintain their integrity, there was a very heavy as anticipated, you know, interest as far as from guests wanting to reserve spaces,” said Garrity. 

For many, the odds were against them. 

John says it’s like New Mexico’s own Taylor Swift concert ticket situation.

“Maybe this is what Taylor Swift people felt like with when they were trying to get tickets, you know. But I went into it, quite frankly, with no real expectations of being able to do it,” he said. 

Garrity says if you’re on the waitlist to keep checking back periodically sometimes people mistakenly double book and things free up. 

“You know, we got through I guess we won the lottery. So maybe we’ll go buy a Mega Millions,” said John. 

Balloon Fiesta officials say the park itself is limited in terms of adding more RV spaces. 

But last year they say the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center set up an RV area just for Balloon Fiesta. 

It’s unclear if that will happen again, but officials say they know the Duke City always come together to host our Balloon Fiesta visitors.