This is certainly a thought provoking thread and will have much more discussion after my post, I’m sure!
There’s a regular poster on here – Chox, who was also trying to get airshows moving in a more interesting way if I remember correctly. Hope he puts in an appearance.
I do agree with you Elliot, that having a change from the usual format to ‘theatre of the air’ could be a very ‘good thing’. It does need a bit of thought and risk-taking so the organisers do have to be bold and try ideas out. Those themed displays you described sound absolutely great, having never been to any. The European airshows geared up for a whole day out is one way of improving things for the visitor. I leave it to others to express their ideas about how the themes are constructed.
Turning now to the visitor, the overwhelming number of visitor parties at my local airshow are families on a day out. Some members of the family are aviation nuts, others go round the market and funfair. Although prices for food and drink are tightly controlled with upper limits, it is still an expensive day for a family so by giving a few ‘freebies’ (drinking water and disposable cups comes to mind) the ‘experience’ is enhanced. Yes, there is a cost but in the overall scheme of things it isn’t much. If facilities are open until well in the evening (hangar dance) it again gives an impression of a good day out, well worth the money. The organisers need to be family friendly really, because it is they who need to be attracted but without forgetting the aviation nut who is catered for by ‘theatre of the air’ and other themes. In short, the wider the appeal, the more people will come. Oh, and the ‘honey cart’ needs to be doing the business more often!
Stallholders and funfair operators may be happy to carry on until there are no more customers and therefore might be agreeable to a slightly higher rent (a lot of customers will disappear at the end of the show). If a family goes home happy with a feeling that they haven’t had every possible penny squeezed, the likelihood is that they’ll come next time, maybe with another party of friends.
To address some of your specifics: Ground attractions, get anything that’ll fly or has anything to do with flying with someone to talk about what they bring. If there’s a day when not everything that is programmed flies you need something else for the visitor to see, make it interesting with variety.
Commentary, needs to be someone who ‘knows his stuff’ but doesn’t babble on over the beautiful noise that aircraft make. There was a sizeable thread on here about one such individual last year.
Music, it always seems to be aviation film music at my local show (another case of same old…, and it’s on a loop!) but whatever is played – it needs to be off when the aircraft are likely to be heard. My view is that there’s a time and place for everything but music (muzak?) seems to be everywhere and at all times!
Sky High’s comment: “a considerably re-worked show with all the added attractions you propose would not attract many more visitors and certainly not if the price was to be increased as well” is true for the ones that ‘sold out’ like Cosford last year. There’s a case for whole weekend airshow to spread the visitor load over two days.
Hope that’s useful, regards, Aerial
Hi Chox, I was a bit slow typing!
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