WALLA WALLA, Wash. — Walla Walla’s hot air balloon festival is drifting further down the 2020 calendar.

Organizers of the Walla Walla Balloon Stampede announced Tuesday evening via social media they will again postpone the festival.

The delay is caused for the second time by the coronavirus pandemic.

First scheduled for Mother’s Day weekend this year, the event was moved to June when restrictions of large gatherings were put in place. As Washington and other states continue with restrictions, the June timeline doesn’t appear feasible either, organizers said.

Sponsors “are all in agreement that, as much as we would like to be flying over the skies of Walla Walla in June, the right thing to do is postpone the Stampede,” the announcement said.

Instead, organizers hope for takeoff in the fall.

Talks about a specific date will resume in a couple of months, the announcement said.

Once a fixture of Mother’s Day weekend, the event was moved several years ago to October as organizers chased what they believed would be more stable weather.

Despite a good test period when the change was made permanent in 2015 and a good year for flights in 2018, poor flying conditions grounded balloons at Howard-Tietan Park the other years. Organizers planned this year to return to May for the 46th annual event.

“We really wanted to bring it back in the spring,” said Scott Peters, CEO of presenting sponsor Columbia Rural Electric Association. It just “doesn’t seem prudent right now,” Peters continued.

“We’ll do our best to make it happen in the fall because we want our communities to have a celebration when this is all over.”

If timing later this year doesn’t work, Peters said it won’t mark the end of the ballooning event.

“We’re committed to keeping it going and bringing it back,” he said.

Organizers include Laurie Spencer, a commercial pilot who co-coordinated the event with her late husband, Scott Spencer, and sponsors Columbia REA, P1FCU, Gordy’s Plastics, Port of Walla Walla, AmeriGas and Townsquare Media.

“We want to see how the opening up of towns, cities and states are going as the next weeks pass and so we will be talking again in a couple of months to discuss moving the Balloon Stampede back to the fall for this year only,” the announcement said.

The event draws 30 to 35 balloonists to Howard-Tietan Park for the five-day festival that includes a morning of tethered flights for children, featured event Nite Glow that illuminates the night skies with the coordinated glow of tethered balloons, and morning takeoffs.