That's so 2013: Zozobra's first hot air balloon design goes classic with contemporary touches

May 20—ALBUQUERQUE — Green hair and sunken eye sockets, black and turquoise fingernails, shockingly pink lips.

That classic bow tie, perennially wagging pointer finger and a sleek, flared-skirt silhouette.

The New Mexico skies will be 720 pounds gloomier when the new Zozobra hot air balloon makes its debut later this year.

The Old Man Gloom balloon will first be inflated Aug. 30 during the 100th anniversary of the first burning of Will Shuster's Zozobra at Fort Marcy Park. It will then take its first full flight in October at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, said Ray Sandoval, the Zozobra event chair for the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe.

"The fact that we can bring our two cities even closer in two traditions that mean so much to us and means the world to me," Sandoval said Monday at the Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum, where the mayors of the two cities and the Kiwanis Club unveiled the new balloon's design.

The 135-foot special shape balloon is a $300,000 purchase by the city of Santa Fe, the city of Albuquerque and the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe, the official Zozobra organizer. It is meant to link New Mexico's two most iconic annual traditions: Santa Fe's burning of the giant marionette and Albuquerque's annual fall balloon festival.

Photographer and Kiwanis Club volunteer Bryce Risley, who is serving as the hot air balloon chair, said it took considerable consideration to figure out what the balloon should look like.

"There's 100 years of Zozobra," he said. "That's 100 different versions of Zozobra."

Organizers eventually settled on the 2013 marionette as the best inspirational model.

"We kind of thought 2013 was a really solid, traditional-looking year," Risley said. "Contemporary, but had all the right details."

Sandoval said some people originally suggested a more classic teardrop-shaped balloon with ears on it, but that idea was ditched in favor of the full-body look.

"We just felt like Zozobra deserved [that]," he said.

"Santa Fe, The City Different" will be emblazoned on the front of Old Man Gloom's skirt, while the back says "One Albuquerque, arts & culture." And anyone looking up from the ground will see a red stamp featuring the Zozobra chant: Burn him.

United Kingdom-based Cameron Balloons is constructing the behemoth, which Sandoval said is expected to arrive in New Mexico in August.

The balloon will be able to lift a pilot and a single passenger when it's flown at high elevation — such as in Northern New Mexico — but will have capacity for three people when launched at sea level.

"We're working on a contract with a balloon pilot," Sandoval said. "We haven't named that person yet. So [many] people are interested in it, so we're trying to go through all of them."

The city of Santa Fe is paying $275,000 for purchase and maintenance of the balloon as part of a five-year contract, which is coming from lodgers tax revenue earmarked for tourism purposes, according to earlier reports. That includes $125,000 for the current fiscal year, $45,000 next year and $35,000 for the final three years. The city of Albuquerque is contributing $150,000 the first year. Santa Fe and Albuquerque are both paying the Kiwanis Club licensing fees and will not have ownership of the balloon.

While city leaders previously estimated the three entities expected to pay $120,000 each year in ongoing maintenance, Sandoval told The New Mexican on Monday the first year's maintenance will cost about $150,000 due to a number of tests that need to be done to make sure the balloon is air-ready. After that, he said, the maintenance costs should drop down to about $50,000 per year.

The balloon will mainly be stored at the museum in Albuquerque, but will be making frequent appearances at various events, which Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber said he expects will build the reputation of both events and both cities.

"The cultural corridor that connects Santa Fe and Albuquerque is unlike anything in America," Webber said. "And this is just another representation of that partnership."

Ronald Martinez, a 75-year-old Santa Fe resident and the Zozobra event's animation director for the past 28 years, said he loved seeing the design unveiled after so many discussions about the balloon.

"Beautiful," said Martinez, who sports a full Zozobra-themed tattoo on his right arm.

Martinez, who has volunteered for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in years past, said he's been going to Zozobra since he was a little boy, long before he got the job of bringing the marionette to life.

"It's all for the people of Santa Fe," he said. "It's for the kids, the money we raise for scholarships and nonprofits, and just being able to keep our culture going."