Heartwood Preserve's amphitheater hosted the second annual Heartwood Kite Festival Saturday and Sunday, with free admission and hours from noon to 5 p.m. Dozens of giant kites filled the sky, including Old Glory, a 550-pound American flag kite measuring 130 feet wide by 80 feet long. Organizers say it is tied for third-largest in the world.
Great American Kites & Events, the touring company behind the festival, brings roughly 80 show kites to each event and chooses which to fly based on wind and venue size, Chief Operations Officer Joe Beaber told WOWT. The company flies its show kites somewhere in the country almost every weekend of the year. Beaber said conditions in Omaha were close to ideal, with sustained winds of about 14 to 15 miles per hour, which he rated a 9.5 out of 10. The company says it can fly kites in winds ranging from 8 to 30 miles per hour, though it prefers 10 to 20.
A Festival Sized to Its Setting
Heartwood Preserve is among Great American Kites & Events' smallest venues of the year, limiting how many kites the company can fly there. Old Glory was still part of the show: the company flies the flag kite only one to three times a year because it requires specific conditions. Beaber said it is believed to be the largest kite in North or South America.
All of the company's kites, including Old Glory, are built by Peter Lynn Kites, a New Zealand-based manufacturer known for pioneering large-scale inflatable kite designs. The engineering traces back to the early 1990s, when founder Peter Lynn began using ripstop fabric and line systems to eliminate the heavy support framing that once weighed down giant kites, according to Peter Lynn Kites. That innovation is what allows whale-sized show kites to be packed up and trucked from town to town without rigid internal poles.
The Record Behind the Giants
Old Glory is part of a history of giant kites built by Peter Lynn Kites. In February 2005, the New Zealand manufacturer built a giant Kuwaiti flag kite that Guinness World Records certified as the largest kite ever flown, measuring nearly 11,000 square feet laid flat. That year, it also built Japan's Mega Moon and Great American Kites' Old Glory. The three held the size record for six years, according to the station's report, until The Pearl surpassed them in 2011. The record changed hands again in 2018, when The Hope, flown in France, became the current Guinness World Record holder for largest kite flown. Guinness World Records lists The Hope as a 13,024-square-foot inflatable single-line kite designed by Peter Lynn Kites that first flew publicly in Berck-sur-Mer, France, on April 17, 2018, surpassing the Kuwaiti flag kite.
Great American Kites & Events grew out of Joe Beaber's father Sean Beaver's interest in kites. The company says it will hold 27 events across nine states in 2026, according to WOWT, and maintains one of the world's largest private collections of giant show kites. It often partners with hot air balloon shows: Beaber said the company can serve as a backup attraction on windy days when balloons cannot fly.
A Reason to Look Up Together
About 20% of people who stop to watch discover the show by driving past, Beaber told the station. He described the company as being in the amazing memory business. “Kites are a colorful reason for people to look up together,” he said. The company has events booked nearly every weekend through the end of 2026 and into 2027, including a hot air balloon and kite show in Altus, Oklahoma, October 24-25. It is scheduled to return to the Omaha area next spring for Springfest at River's Edge in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
The festival follows an inaugural event in October 2025, which organizers cited as one of their standout stops among 40 nationwide events that year, according to Courier Nebraska. The outlet says Heartwood Park covers 19 acres within the larger Heartwood Preserve development and has an amphitheater designed to hold up to 8,000 people for large community gatherings. For this year's expected crowds, organizers arranged satellite parking and shuttles from nearby Stonebridge Church and Elkhorn North High School, according to a Heartwood Omaha video announcement.
The Park in a Growing West Omaha Development
Heartwood Preserve itself is a 500-acre mixed-use development built on former Boys Town land and farmland near 144th Street and West Dodge Road, assembled in 2016 through two contiguous 250-acre land acquisitions involving the DeMarco family and Boys Town. The site includes 80 acres of dedicated green space and 13 sculpted stormwater detention basins woven into the master plan. Project developer Applied Underwriters has scheduled the 2026 opening of a new 270,000-square-foot operations headquarters within the development, designed to house up to 2,000 employees adjacent to the park's greenways. Hoodline previously reported on the neighboring Oak View Mall redevelopment, which also sits near the Heartwood Preserve corridor along West Dodge Road.
Public Access, Kite History and Flight Rules
Heartwood Preserve's park page describes Heartwood Park as available to the public. That statement speaks to access, but does not establish municipal ownership; the development context described above places the park within Heartwood Preserve's broader growth and open-space plans. Kite festivals have a longer history in another public setting: the Smithsonian Institution Archives records that the first Kite Carnival was held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on March 25, 1967, with kite flying, kite-making workshops, lectures and a kite display. Federal rules also address large tethered kites. The Electronic Code of Federal Regulations generally applies its kite provisions to kites weighing more than 5 pounds and intended to fly at the end of a rope or cable, subject to an exception. The rule does not establish whether any event-specific requirements were met.
