An 88 x 80 m festival launch field an hour before a mass ascent, tiled from the pack's own grass, mown lane and farm track modules and closed by a hedgerow with a five bar gate in it. Two balloons stand fully inflated over their baskets on the mown lanes with the burner frames lit under them, a third lies half full and leaning with its inflation fan running into the mouth, and two more envelopes are walked out flat on the grass with their crown and side lines flaked beside them. Round each one is the gear that put it there: baskets, spare burners, propane cylinders in racks and strapped baskets, fuel hoses, scoops, ballast bags, handling lines, drop lines, trolleys and tether anchors. Recovery vehicles and trailers stand on the farm track along the middle with roof racks and cones, one trailer loaded with a basket and an envelope bag. The spectator side runs behind a crowd barrier and a bunting line: the registration gazebo with trestle tables and chairs, the catering van with its hatch up, the first aid point, toilets, bins, the generator, floodlight masts, flag poles, a briefing board, a PA speaker and the bunded fuel bay with its extinguisher stand. A windsock, pilot balloon, marshal flags and pitch marker posts read the wind and mark the slots, with hay and straw bales, tree clumps and a parched corner finishing the field.