Balloons Light Up the Night: Thousands Turn Out for Zuru Nightglow at Waikato University
There were tears, laughter, and more than a few gasps from the crowd when the first balloon lit up against the darkened sky above the University of Waikato campus on Saturday evening. For one Hamilton mother, standing in that crowd meant more than most people around her could have known.
Just months ago, she was in a hospital bed, midway through chemotherapy. On Saturday night, she was watching glowing hot-air balloons fill the sky with her children by her side — her first major public outing since being given the all-clear.
"I told myself that if I got through this, I would bring my kids to Nightglow," she told the Waikato Times. "And here we are."
“The whole place just lights up — literally. There’s nowhere else in the country where you get something quite like this.”
Her story was one of many that made this year’s Balloons Over Waikato Nightglow something more than a spectacular light show. The free, ticketed event drew tens of thousands of visitors to the university grounds, with balloons tethered to the ground and inflated in sequence to music, creating a breathtaking display that had been sold out for weeks.
This year’s event carried special meaning for toy company Zuru, which co-founded by Hamilton-raised entrepreneur Mat Mowbray, who described sponsoring the Nightglow as a “full-circle moment” — a chance to give something back to the city where he grew up. The festival runs until Tuesday, with dawn mass ascensions drawing early risers across the Waikato each morning.
