Middletown hosted the U.S. National Hot Air Balloon Championships in 1992, 1993, 1994. For the next several years, residents kept asking when the balloons would return. In 2003 the MidUSA Ohio Challenge (formerly MidFirst) began with 30 balloons and a small ground festival.

2012 marks the 10th anniversary of the event which now involves 40+ hot air balloons and a full ground festival. The MidUSA Ohio Challenge has become a premier event in Butler County and is a part of family, group and reunion plans. The public/private partnership and many grants and sponsorships make the event friendly to family budgets.

Participating hot air balloons are all flown by licensed balloon pilots and will take to the skies in the Middletown area, weather permitting, per the schedule in this program. Balloons can fly only when the air currents are less than 10 mph aloft. Conditions for hot air balloon flights generally are only in the time immediately after sunrise until about 9am and again in the evening from about 6pm to official sunset when all balloon craft must be on the ground. (Even when balloons cannot fly, there is still much to see and do at Smith Park in Middletown.)

Balloons flicker in the night like giant fireflies
After dark on Friday and Saturday nights, weather permitting, many of the balloons will “glow” on site for the guests in Smith Park topped off with a Laser Light Show and, on Friday, Fireworks!