Will London's hot air balloon festival 2025 be rescheduled? New date for Lord Mayor's regatta confirmed

The Lord Mayor’s annual hot air balloon festival will not take place this weekend.

The annual event, which sees dozens of stunning hot air balloons take to the skies above the capital, was due to take place on Sunday, 11th May 2025.

Sadly, due to weather conditions, the event has been ‘stood down’.

Strong winds are forecast for London this weekend, making it unsuitable for hot air balloons to take flight over central London.

According to the Met Office, Sunday is expected to have wind gusts of up to 30mph by the early afternoon.

This is not the first time the ballooning event has been ‘stood down’. The 2022, 2023, and 2024 editions were also unable to go ahead.

However, it’s not all bad news as two additional dates have been proposed.

New date for London’s hot air balloon festival confirmed

Three standby dates were put forward for the 2025 Lord Mayor’s Hot Balloon Regatta festival, the first of which is this Sunday, May 11.

The other two proposed dates are later this summer, on July 20 and July 27.

A statement from the organisers says: “Forecasts show an easterly wind, which would take all of the hot air balloons directly towards Heathrow airport runway. We now roll to our next standby date of Sunday, 20th July.”

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