WATCH THE SKY INFLATE : Batteries, Tigers Are Shapes of Things to Come in Tustin

Randy Travis will play there. So will the Beach Boys and America. There will be a petting zoo, arts and crafts exhibits, plenty of food, carnival rides for children and a classic car show.

A quickie reprise of the Orange County Fair, perhaps? Another “Taste of . . .” event? No, this particular happening has something the others don’t, and the man behind it all isn’t shy about pointing it out.

“Every town has a ‘Taste of Your Aunt Millie’s Rhubarb.’ Every town has a fair,” said John Korff. “I mean, nothing against farm animals and cotton candy, but this is something different.”

What Korff’s festival has is . . . balloons. Hot-air balloons, to be precise, more than 100 of which will be floating gracefully over Tustin Ranch and environs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It’s a spectacle that’s rare in such a populated place--and, organizers say, downright unprecedented in Orange County.

Most balloon festivals take place out in the middle of nowhere because, well, that’s where balloonists usually head. There are more places to put down, a consideration since balloons go pretty much wherever the wind takes them. There’s also less bureaucratic hassle.

Bringing such a festival to Orange County has been a minor logistics miracle, with busy airports and skeptical local authorities and crowd-phobic neighbors to consider. So why bother? Why not head out to Temecula or Perris or other less-congested ballooning meccas?

Well, the Smith’s Festival of Ballooning has a corporate sponsor to consider, a corporate sponsor who wants to attract lots of people to the event. The whole thing started last year when Korff, a sporting events promoter with offices in Irvine and New York, was attending the famed Albuquerque balloon festival with an official of Smith’s, a supermarket chain.

The Smith’s guy wondered aloud about launching a new event to bring attention to the chain, and Korff suggested a balloon festival. The exec asked what the connection would be between supermarkets and balloons, and Korff told him to look up at the shaped balloons.

“There’s Tony the Tiger. There’s the Ray-O-Vac battery. . . . There’s Alka-Seltzer. There’s a giant condom. I think we have the store covered.”

About 20 shaped balloons will be here over the weekend, most of them sponsored by companies. The sky will fill with giant corporate images, bringing the art of product placement to new heights--literally and figuratively. (There will also be non-commercial balloons, including three from the Forbes collection: a genie, an elephant and a parrot that’s 400 feet--35 stories--tall.)

“Nobody has a bad opinion about balloons,” said Korff, who has turned a balloon festival in New Jersey into one of the state’s biggest tourist attractions. It was important to start the festival in a major, family-oriented population area, he said, and it was important to make a big splash right from the start for what he plans as an annual event.

“You can’t start small and get big. If you start small, you’ll never get out of puberty,” he said. “There’s so much stuff (to do) here, people get cynical after a while.”

A balloon festival, Korff said, will be unusual enough to get people’s attention, and he expects as many as 100,000 to attend.

The ascensions, scheduled once in early morning and once in late afternoon, are the spectacular main attraction. Clusters of three and four balloons will be released in waves about 30 seconds apart until all 100 or so are airborne, a process that takes about an hour.

(The public will not be able to ride in balloons this time around, although that may change in future editions of the festival).

So awe-inspiring is the sight, Korff said, that announcers at balloon festivals must remind distracted parents to keep track of small children.

“Every dad turns into Ansel Adams,” Korff said, mimicking a father leaning back at an awkward angle to get a shot. “It’s a chiropractor’s dream.”

It isn’t merely a spectator sport, either. “Spectators get down and actually help (the balloonists). It’s like you’re standing in the backfield with Joe Montana,” said Korff, an enthusiastic showman--one press release compares him to P.T. Barnum--who likes to cloak his hyperbole in sports metaphors (signing up the shaped balloons for the festival is like “getting the Steffi Grafs” of tennis).

Festival-goers who arrive early are often recruited to help crews roll out the balloons, which can be several hundred feet high when inflated. Then they might be asked to help hold the balloon gondolas earthbound while pilots await their turn to head skyward.

Once aloft, the balloonists will be playing a game of hare and hound. A lead balloon goes out with a head start of 15 to 20 minutes and, after floating some distance, puts down and rolls out a giant “X” on the ground. The other balloonists try to find the spot and drop a bean bag as close to the target as possible.

It’s harder than it sounds. Balloonists follow the breeze, but winds can shift after the lead balloon takes off; also, wind direction varies at different altitudes.

There are other navigational competitions as well, with balloonists competing for $25,000 in prizes.

The morning air has been so still of late that balloonists will likely stray no more than a mile or so from the launch site. In the afternoon, with a breeze blowing, they will probably go four to five miles.

Sometime between 7:45 and 8:15 p.m., after the balloons have returned from their afternoon flight and the sun has set, many will be partially inflated. The effect, as they are lit from within by their gas flames in the darkness, is called a “balloon glow,” and Korff likened it to “huge Chinese lanterns.”

Korff said mornings are the most beautiful time to watch a launch but predicted that the late-afternoon ascensions will draw the most spectators, largely because of the entertainment that follows. Country star Randy Travis will play the main stage Friday night; the Beach Boys and America perform Saturday. Both concerts start at 7 p.m.

Sunday’s concert, beginning at 4 p.m., has an oldies theme, with performances by ex-Supreme Mary Wilson, the Grass Roots, the Turtles and Gary Puckett. Festival tickets ($15 per day, $5 for ages 6 to 12, free for children under 6) include general admission seats to the concerts. Reserved seats, also including festival admission, are $30.

Other daily entertainment will include local pop and jazz bands, strolling mimes, jugglers, magicians and puppeteers.

But rising above all, in more ways than one, will be the balloons. And though they’ll be visible for miles around, Korff--ever the showman--couldn’t help but wish for just a little more attention:

“My dream situation is to have the wind shift and have the balloons go out over the 5 and 405.”

How a Hot-Air Balloon Works

As cool air inside the balloon is heated, it expands and becomes lighter than outside air. This causes the balloon to rise. Altitude is the only factor a pilot can control. The only way to steer is by riding wind currents. Average cruising altitude is 3,500 feet. 1) A fan blows cool air into a 60- to 75-foot-high balloon made of rip-proof nylon. A propane burner is lighted and heats the air until the balloon rises. To launch, ropes anchoring the balloon to the ground are untied. 2) The flight path is affected entirely by wind. To change direction, the pilot heats or cools air inside the balloon, which rises or falls in search of currents. 3) To land, the pilot catches a current toward the landing area. The balloon descends when hot air is slowly released from a vent at top or less propane is burned.

Did You Know? * At festivals: Balloons may be launched and rise 1,000 to 2,000 feet, then hang in place over the site until increasing winds force landings. For rides, balloons are anchored in place with a cable and ascend or descend as desired. * Best time to fly: At sunrise or just before sunset with winds under 5 to 7 m.p.h. * How high: Balloons may fly up to 15,000 feet. * Construction: Modern gondolas are made of aluminum and enclosed by wicker. * Pilot training: Must be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, pass a written exam and flight tests and log a specific number of flight hours. * How many: There are more than 2,500 sport balloonists in the United States. * History

In the late 1700s, French brothers Jacques and Joseph Montgolfier created the first hot-air balloon by anchoring the opening of a 35-foot-wide bag to the ground over a fire. On Nov. 21, 1783, the first untethered manned hot-air balloon flight took place over Paris. During the Civil War, hot-air balloons were used to report Confederate troop movements. The official distance record for a hot-air balloon flight, a 2,788 mile crossing of the Atlantic, was set in 1987. Sources: Smith’s Festival of Ballooning, World Book Encyclopedia, Times files; Researched by APRIL JACKSON / Los Angeles Times