Discover how MJ Ballooning started, building our brand through the years, and how we acquired some of the most iconic UK special shape hot air balloons. How my childhood dream as a 10 year old is now reality in 2023…
Picture this; it’s 2003, it’s Saturday night, the sun is shining, balloons are filling the blue skies above Ashton Court, you can feel the excitement from the crowd. Suddenly, to the sound of bagpipes, a balloon in the shape of a Scotsman takes off to end the mass ascent, which completely blows my mind – on the picnic blanket I gaze up to the skies and wonder, how is it possible, how do they make such a balloon, how does it fly? That is my earliest memory as a 3 year old at the 25th annual Bristol Balloon Fiesta.
 |  |
Welcome to the blog. Let me introduce myself, I’m Matt and I own MJ Ballooning. Hot air ballooning all started for me by accident. My parents taking me to the Bristol Balloon Fiesta year after year had no idea this would get me so hooked (sometimes you could say obsessed) and lead to something I would end up doing for probably my whole life, but how I am glad they did. I kept going to the fiesta in 2004 through to 2008 seeing some incredible balloons, my favourites of that time IKEA, Chubb, Monster and Churchill.
 |  |  |
The 2009 event was a memorable one for me; we had a fantastic Saturday up at the site ending with some of the best balloons tethering at the end. Seeing the tartan fabric being unravelled by the crew of the Piper was always the best moment, nothing could beat seeing that balloon up close for me back then. The next evening, the final ascent that year, my mum was driving home with me from my grandparents’ house in Ashton. I’d stayed with them all weekend to watch the morning launches, standing on a stall looking out the bathroom window armed with my trusty binoculars and tiny Sony camera with virtually no zoom! After the last few balloons had taken off we thought it time to drive home, so gathered my stuff, said bye and got on our way, but I was in for a surprise that night. Out of nowhere I caught glimpse of something in the sky driving along North Street in Bedminster. It was the Jaguar car and my (now all-time favourite) Piper. I could hardly believe it. We pulled over to watch them drift by for a few minutes, oh how I wish I had a decent camera on me that day!
 |  |  |
Living in Bristol, balloons would also often be visible from the house all year round although rarely did the winds bring them close to us. If it wasn’t raining and the winds were reasonably calm my mum and dad didn’t even need to ask what I was up to, I was obviously waiting for some balloons to fly over or at least as tiny dots in the distance! Most of the time no balloons came. But sometimes the balloons did come. House of Fraser, Betfair, Jones Lang Lasalle and Bristol Balloons were just some that did fly right above the house over the years.
 |  |  |
I used to briefly check a basic weather forecast for an idea of the wind direction but didn’t really have much of a clue back then. Using some felt tip pens I added some of the most common local balloons to a sheet kept by the upstairs window and I’d make a tally of how many times I see each balloon every season. I remember a gap in the houses where the balloons would be visible about 15 minutes after take off from Ashton Court. What also helped me was my grandad calling if he saw any pass over their garden in Ashton and whether he thought I’d see them. It certainly kept me entertained.
As I reached 10 or 11 years of age I developed a real interest in the shape balloons, known as special shapes. I drew pictures of them, constantly googled pictures of them, made folders with all sorts of info about them (most of it probably wrong!) and talked about them to pretty much anyone. In my head as a kid I was just fascinated at how these remarkable aircraft could be built with such precision and flown over the city I’ve grown up in. There were lots of great moments every August growing up but also some tears when the flights were cancelled. I clearly remember seeing the Cockerel, Blue Square and Palletways shapes in the distance on the delayed Friday morning mass ascent of 2011.
So, it’s now 2012 and I’m 12 years old. During the hours of searching the internet for pretty much any Bristol balloon picture I could find I came across this website called JEM Ballooning run by a young balloonist, James, who lived in Maidstone, Kent. I filled out the contact form, I think asking about what had happened to a shape that had seemingly disappeared just out of curiosity, not really expecting a response. This turned into a massively long email conversation lasting months on and off talking about UK ballooning and shapes, mainly me asking where a balloon was now located or what had happened to it.
August was again approaching meaning only one thing: fiesta time. Through James I found out about the 2012 press launch taking place from Greville Smyth park a week before the main event, just around the corner from my grandparents’ house. I asked my mum if we could go, thinking she’d say no as it was ridiculously early, but knowing how much I loved it she agreed to set the alarm to drive across town to watch the launch.
 |  |
I was hoping there might be a few special shapes there. It turned out there would be just one, but my current favourite at the time, Slick the Palletways Dragon. We parked along the edge of the park, my eyes fixated on the dragon trailer with ‘dragon power’ in bold lettering with great artwork on the side and waited for 20 minutes or so before walking in to get a closer look. Perfect sunny conditions with light winds greeted us as the sun came up and it was a morning to remember with 30 balloons flying over the city.
About a week before we were on holiday in Swanage, Dorset; it was our final day and my dad said to me about a tweet from the fiesta he had seen on Twitter. All day the fiesta team posted up the shapes to look out for and I was so excited. Choc Dips was going which I’d never seen before, Babybel, Woody Woodpecker and one I could not believe, Action Man!
As the event got ever closer, I made it known that I really (really) wanted to go on Thursday for the special shapes launch to hopefully see all these amazing balloons that had been announced as attending, and we did. Walking up it felt breezy and we weren’t sure what to expect, but wow, was I in for a treat that night. I was especially hoping to see Action Man, undoubtedly one of the greatest balloons ever, built right here in Bristol. Would I finally get chance to see it in real life and not just on my laptop screen at home? Mum kept saying not to get my hopes up and that it might not even be there.
That evening I watched Palletways, Babybel, Stowells, Mr Peanut and more tether, while Choc Dips, Panasonic Battery, Blue Square, UP and my beloved Action Man fly. I really do think it was this night that made me decide, yes, this is what I want to do - I want to do ballooning when I’m older. For the Friday night finale you can see the view from the event vs my view!
 |  |
The next year, 2013, was a somewhat similar picture again going up for the Thursday evening, and again lots of balloons flying. I saw the Financial Times tablet, Scottish Cup, Stuart the Minion, and Snow White special shapes for the very first time. Snow White, a new balloon to the fiesta, flew really low over our road on Saturday morning; absolutely amazing.
 |  |
Fast forward to March 2014. It was Sunday morning. The weather was rubbish. I had nothing to do all day. I needed something to do. A few weeks before for a school IT project I made a really awful website and called it MJ Ballooning, but it was left unpublished. I thought my initials with ballooning after it, that’ll do! But maybe I should put some real effort in and turn this website into a gallery of my photos and post updates so people know if balloons might be flying? I knew nobody would see it, but I was bored so proceeded to put something together.
I had been hoping the last few years that someone might create a website dedicated to ballooning in Bristol with info and pictures for people because there was so much going on, so much to write about and surely it wasn’t just me with this interest? It didn’t happen so I thought, well, I’ll have to do it myself.
That Sunday I did not stop. 9am to 9pm or even longer. The first published version was nothing like what you see today, but that’s how MJ Ballooning all started. Shortly after I set up a Twitter account and to my disbelief and amazement during the first afternoon Cameron Balloons followed me back. It was a big deal back then! Facebook shortly followed. I got a good quality camera for my birthday and over the next year I mainly posted pictures of balloons flying near the house with one or two likes per post maximum. But this didn’t stop me, I carried on.
The ballooning season arrived and I was keen to get to some of the local launch sites, Royal Victoria Park and Ashton Court, as my interest in ballooning kept growing and the website slowly gained more views and followers. I met my good friend Liam for the first time along with Chris during a nice launch in Bristol on 11th June 2014, watching A-GAS, Red Letter Days, Bristol Uni and Sun Rise. All of us shared the same interest in ballooning and it was great to make some new friends, although I was a bit late to the party as I learnt they had been doing it for years.
Forecasts for the following evening were looking even better and I managed to get a lift straight from school to the other side of town to attend and get some up close photos for the website. That night I took my profile picture for MJ Ballooning, which has remained the same ever since and we have no plans to change it anytime soon!
 |  |  |
I kept going to a handful of local launches, including the Bath Balloon Fiesta earlier on in May, meeting a few new people, and joined the Western Region British Balloon & Airship Club (WRBBAC) which got me access to the balloonist’s arena at the fiesta. Finally, after all these years I’d be in the arena up close with all the balloons, it was great news.
Miss Daisy, the L.E Electrical Light Bulb and the Smurf were ones to look out for in 2014. I met Liam shortly before the Thursday shapes launch, we collected our wristbands and that’s it, I was in! I was very excited and what was even better, the weather was perfect. Almost immediately, however, we were roped into helping a balloonist who wasn’t from Bristol to inflate an old round envelope. Bear in mind I have zero crew experience at this stage and have no idea what I’m doing, but thought I better be helpful and lend a hand. I wish I hadn’t – the pilot came across to the crown line afterwards screaming we did a terrible job and I should learn how to crew. What a lovely introduction to what I thought would be an enjoyable day. I thought to myself, is this what it’s like to be involved in ballooning?
Well, I now know that no, it isn’t, we were just unlucky. Fortunately, I didn’t let this ruin the day and met lots of new faces including James who I had been speaking to for a couple of years now, along with Liam’s brother Dan who ran and still runs Ballooning Pictures UK, and Mark, a balloonist from Oxford. Plenty of special shapes took to the skies that evening and it was another great fiesta before the Sunday storm arrived, again mostly spent watching nearby in Ashton for me.
 |  |
Soon after I started my YouTube channel, which was very thin on the ground content wise back in 2015 with just a handful of videos. Early in the year I went for a week’s work experience by the Bristol docks at Somerset Design where I met a guy from news and events website 365 Bristol and told him my hot air ballooning story so far. Perhaps not in quite so much detail as this blog, however! The result of that conversation was this article “MJ Ballooning owner Matthew Joyce enthuses about Cameron Balloons, the annual Balloon Fiesta and why ballooning is such a fantastic hobby” being published a few days later.
By this time, I had just over one thousand followers and the name MJ Ballooning was becoming known amongst some balloonists and members of the public. Things were going well. I even created some PDF email guides which incorporated my love for design and lots of people signed up for them. They were pretty good but too time consuming for me to continue.
I decided that I had done enough gazing out upstairs windows from afar and the time had come to do the fiesta properly; do every slot no matter what. Well, did I choose a good year. The forecast was looking superb but me and our group of friends thought it may be slightly breezy for the first evening launch. I arrived on the lunch time to watch an incredibly windy tether of the Minion, but as ever it was due to drop by evening. Clive Bailey started briefing at 6pm split between shape pilots and sponsor / ride pilots without hesitation that they would be flying. Whoop! I stood in the marquee watching all the trailers drive on and with a near perfect forecast for the rest of the event, I couldn’t wait to get going. 2015 saw all 7 planned mass ascents go ahead for the first time ever and were some of the best days I’ve ever had.
 |  |  |
It was noticeable that the number and complexity of special shapes was going downhill a bit now which was disappointing, but commercially operated Palletways and Scottish Cup etc were still flying.
I was invited to crew for James on his new Ultramagic 90 at the Bath Balloon Fiesta in 2016 and typically, the forecast was looking terrible. Thankfully a slot did open up for us on the Sunday night and I was very grateful to be in the basket for the first time. It was certainly an exciting one with a fast landing and I hardly looked back at Bath or the Royal Crescent with my legs shaking profusely of nerves and excitement the whole time.
 |  |
I finished my exams and left school ready for a busy summer of ballooning. I literally had nothing else planned! I had a good few months, still posting regular photo updates and local confirmed flights for my followers, however it ended with a disappointing Bristol Balloon Fiesta. What I had feared was happening the year before was confirmed to me; just 6 special shapes attended the 2016 fiesta, one of them just a round with add ons. Shapes were being forgotten about. I asked myself, where is the Piper? Where is Action Man? It was losing some of that magic I so dearly loved when I was younger and still do.
This year also saw the return of balloons at Wiltshire safari park Longleat for the first Sky Safari event in September, which I also attended with James and G-JEMS, where I had my second and third flights; still very nervous!
As we move into 2017 and 2018, I carried on building my social media following and adding more content to the website, now thousands of images and hundreds of photo albums. My photography skills had dramatically improved and I had learnt a lot. My YouTube reach was growing nicely too, and I was videoing every launch. During 2017 I enjoyed further flights over Bristol and Bath and crewed at the fiesta.
 |  |  |
I was getting everything ready for another ballooning season, this time delayed into April due to quite a wet winter, when I saw a Facebook post with 3 balloons that were supposedly coming to the UK. Angry Bird and Iwi the Kiwi from the USA and Yoda from Belgium. Wow, I knew something special was planned but did not expect that. After thinking shapes were becoming a thing of the past as well. Taking place at Ragley Hall in Alcester, this was a brand new event for the UK ballooning calendar. Remember JEM Ballooning back in 2012? Well, James now runs the hugely successful and brilliant event Midlands Air Festival. The inaugural year was a huge success with every slot flown and some of the best special shapes in the world on display including the Piper, Babybel, Action Man and Superbike in addition to the above. The sense of excitement on the launch field for the opening Friday launch was something I will never forget, knowing all these balloons were on site and I was actually going to see them.
 |  |  |
Sixth form was wrapping up in 2018 and I was determined to have the best summer of ballooning I could possibly have. And I did; I went to almost every local launch. Something really exciting happened for me this year. The Bristol Balloon Fiesta was due to celebrate its 40th anniversary and had something very special planned indeed, ‘special’ being the optimum word. That’s right, 40 special shapes for 40 years. I just had to get involved so I got in touch with the fiesta team saying I wanted to post the shapes alongside them daily, which would benefit us both and they duly agreed. Over the last few years, I had taught myself how to run social media channels to a good level and I worked with the fiesta to source images and make a plan of which shape to post which day, something I really loved doing and it was great to be involved. Bertie Bassetts were returning along with retro Mr Peanut, Andrews Can, Mercury and Chubb Fire Extinguisher. The incredible Superbike and Wish Cake were on the attending list and the balloon that started it all for me, the Piper. The Piper was coming back to Bristol, at last.
 |  |
Heading into fiesta week I had never been so excited about an event, even reflecting on that incredible launch 6 years ago in 2012. The weather wasn’t looking favourable, and I let this ruin the build-up for me slightly, but I shouldn’t have; it turned into a spectacular event for special shapes despite only one free flight. Rupert Bear even joined in with the fun! A little bit before my time but a fiesta favourite amongst many reading this no doubt. It was during this weekend I was asked to appear on BBC Points West as a guest, which I declined. I should have done it!
Once the rain arrived and the fun ended from Saturday lunch time onwards, I was preparing myself to start my new job on the following Tuesday, which went very well. My friends Liam and Dan Whitelock had also started their old balloon collection by this time, known as Bristol Balloon Collectors, which I was involved with by helping tether locally and at events.
I carried on attending Midlands, Bristol and Longleat as well as plenty of local flying slots during the 2019 season. Highlights for me included watching Darth Vader fly out of the fiesta and Saturday night at Arbury Hall with a massively impressive selection of old and new special shapes on the field. I had never done so much running to get pictures as that night! At the very beginning of 2020 I met up with Bristol Live reporter Andrew McQuarrie to talk about ballooning in Bristol and why I love it so much, which was featured on their website and newspaper called "Meet the biggest fan of hot air balloons in Bristol (and Britain)".
You can also check out my in depth write ups of past fiestas on the fiesta reviews page, right the way from 2004.
 |  |  |
You know what happened after that. Covid-19 hit. My plans along with everyone else’s went out the window. Midlands was cancelled. Bristol was cancelled. Oh dear, this wasn’t looking good. When normality did eventually start to return and balloons could fly again in early July, my photos made ITV local news and I had many mentions on BBC Radio Bristol throughout the summer of 2020. The reach across my social channels I had the weekend the balloons started flying again was great for me back then, well over 100 likes on each post and seen by tens of thousands of users. Seeing a simple balloon in the sky, an icon of Bristol, for that split second can bring some joy to a person’s day, a reminder that normal life was returning, albeit very slowly.
 |  |  |
Still completely obsessed with shapes, friend Tom and I had been saying for a couple of years now that if a special shape came up for sale that wasn’t too expensive, we’d go for it. Did I truthfully think it would ever happen? Probably not. Well, at the very beginning of 2021 it did happen.
I am now writing this as owner of 8 special shape hot air balloons I acquired over the next 2 years. Look out for Part 2 coming at the weekend as I take you through each balloon one by one and how we're preserving the magic.
See you then for the next leg of the journey.
Part 2 is now available - click here!
