Sandy's Balloon Festival Lasts Two Days. The Monday Ritual Lasts the Season.
Vir Singh August 13, 2026
Vir Singh August 13, 2026
Each August, alarms go off across Sandy well before sunrise, and not for work. They're for the balloons.
In 2026, Sandy's 19th annual Hot Air Balloon Festival ran on Friday and Saturday, August 7 and 8, with sunrise launches at Storm Mountain Park and a Balloon Glow on Saturday night at the City Promenade, according to Sandy City's announcement. Admission was free. The festival is two days long. What carries a Sandy summer is quieter: a weekly ritual that keeps going long after the balloons are packed away.
The festival splits across the city in a way that catches first-timers out. The sunrise launches, the part with balloons actually in the air, happen at Storm Mountain Park, 980 East 11400 South, at sunrise, around 6:30 a.m., on both mornings.
The evening event is at a different address. The Balloon Glow takes place on Saturday night at the City Promenade, 10000 South Centennial Parkway, from 7 to 10:30 p.m. The balloons stay on the ground and light up in place, and the evening includes a drone show. Launches, the glow and the drone show all depend on the weather. Arrive at Storm Mountain Park on Saturday evening expecting balloons and you'll find an empty field. Arrive at the Promenade at sunrise and you'll find the same.
Event | Location | Day | Time (2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
Sunrise balloon launches | Storm Mountain Park | Fri & Sat | ~6:30 a.m. |
Balloon Glow and drone show | City Promenade | Sat | 7:00–10:30 p.m. |
After nineteen years, it's an established tradition, and the split format serves two audiences: early risers who want to see the flight, and evening crowds who want the glow without the alarm clock.
The festival is two days. Food Truck Night at Sandy Amphitheater Park is a city event that returns each spring and runs most Monday evenings into mid-October, with a different lineup of trucks each week. In 2025 the season ran from April 7 to October 13. In 2026 it ran from April 6 to October 12, from 5 to 8 p.m.
The festival is the photographed, once-a-year version of a Sandy summer. Food Truck Night is the repeatable one, a Monday on the lawn that doesn't need a drone show to justify itself. It carries the city from spring well into October.
Sandy's restaurant map also changed in 2026. Penny Ann's Cafe opened its fifth location in March at 7495 South Union Park Avenue, bringing the breakfast-and-lunch menu behind its "Heavenly Hot Cakes" to a family business that, as Utah Stories noted, has been running since 2011. The owners describe it as a multi-year Best of State winner for breakfast, as Gastronomic SLC reported.
The Smoked Taco opened its eighth location on July 8 at 11396 State Street, its first in Sandy, with a ribbon cutting hosted by the South Valley Chamber of Commerce, according to RestaurantNews.com.
You rarely get to know a place through the one weekend that makes the local news. You get to know it through the routines that keep running afterward: a Monday evening on the amphitheater lawn, a new breakfast spot, a festival you learn to time correctly the second year.
If you're getting to know Sandy, or you've lived here long enough to have opinions about which food truck line moves fastest, I'm always glad to talk about the neighborhoods as well as the market. You can find me at kingswellestates.com.
Vir Singh · Kingswell Estates
The Perry Group · Real Broker, LLC
Photograph: O'Sullivan Peak from the summit of Twin Peaks, Wasatch Range, by Tristan Higbee, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped to 16:9).
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