A popular hot air balloon festival has been axed because of a lack of funding.
Annual event Lift Off Levin, which has brought 20 balloons and pilots to the region since 2005, has this year been cancelled because of insufficient funding.
Spokesman Denis Hall said Levin Hot Air Balloon Society had made "strenuous efforts to raise the necessary funding'' without success.
"Naturally I am very disappointed, and we believe that the people of Levin and the balloonists will feel the loss,'' he said.
For the past five years, most of the event's funding has come from the Horowhenua Community Trust, but last year the trust ceased to exist.
