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With autumn just around the corner, Callaway Gardens kicked off its fall lineup with a ribbon cutting to celebrate renovations to the Robin Lake Pavilion.

The celebration also kicked off the resort and gardens’ annual Labor Day Weekend Hot Air Balloon Show & Glow, the official start of fall at Callaway Gardens.

Over Labor Day weekend, the skies at Callaway Gardens are filled with colorful hot air balloons and at night those balloons line the beach at Robin Lake to celebrate the end of summer.

Labor Day weekend at Callaway Gardens offers activities from sun-up to sun-down including tethered balloon rides, live music, a classic car cruise, a K9 Flight show, lakeside kids’ activities, water sports and a nightly “glow,” where gigantic, rainbow-hued balloons light up Robin Lake.

Soon afterward, the fall festivities continue with the park’s other fall tradition, Pumpkins at Callaway – Gardens by Day, Glow by Night. The event includes Cason’s Corn Maze, a not-so-spooky corn maze with two levels of difficulty.

Chris Lutz, Vice President and General Manager of Callaway Resort and Gardens, said the corn maze has a different shape each year. This year the maze has a new sunflower-inspired design.

The park will also feature a new nightly “Pumpkin Kids Parade” where kids of all ages can parade around the towering Pumpkin Tree that appears at Robin Lake each fall.

Along with the corn maze, for three days over Halloween, Callaway will offer trick-or-treating for the first time with its new Treat Trail from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2.

Thursday’s event officially opened the newly renovated Robin Lake Plaza hub area.

“This will be an activation area or starting point for our various events throughout the fall,” Lutz said. “We’ve added brand new restrooms. We’ve added a nice new pavilion here at Picnic Pavilion. We’ve also added a brand new playground area. We’ve also redone the entire plaza area here down by the Robin Lake Grill,” Lutz said.

“We are looking forward to a festive fall season,” Lutz said. “[The Labor Day balloons] is truly the kickoff to the fall season, and really sets us up for success as we go into Pumpkins followed by Fantasy and Lights.”

“We’re very excited. We know it was a long, hot summer, and now we’re ready for the fall to come in, and we’ve got a tremendous lineup of events,” Lutz said, noting that fall and winter are often their biggest times of the year.